On the shoulders of his father, armed with a blunt wooden machete, Tyler Pyle, 12, of Homestead, top, and Shane Pyle, 43, of Homestead, make their way through a waterlogged trail Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County, Fla. Hunters came from around the region and state to take part in the annual Python Challenge. The hope is to eradicate the invasive species that is off-balancing the food chain and ecosystem of the Everglades. (Corey Perrine/Staff)

SHARE Chris Nelson, 41, from left, and girlfriend Norka Fernandez, 32, both of Kendall, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County, Fla. Hunters came from around the region and state to take part in the annual Python Challenge. The hope is to eradicate the invasive species that is off-balancing the food chain and ecosystem of the Everglades. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Ramiro Torres, 38, of Kendall, pokes around for pythons Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County, Fla. Hunters came from around the region and state to take part in the annual Python Challenge. The hope is to eradicate the invasive species that is off-balancing the food chain and ecosystem of the Everglades. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Bob Besherse of Orange Park, from left, a seasonal worker for FWC, sets up a drop off area as Carol Balman of Collier County and his wife, Carla, talk, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County, Fla. Hunters came from around the region and state to take part in the annual Python Challenge. The hope is to eradicate the invasive species that is off-balancing the food chain and ecosystem of the Everglades. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Make shift paint rollers are intended to be used to pin down the head of pythons as Norka Fernandez, 32, of Kendall, is seen in the background Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County, Fla. Hunters came from around the region and state to take part in the annual Python Challenge. The hope is to eradicate the invasive species that is off-balancing the food chain and ecosystem of the Everglades. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Related Photos 2016 Python Challenge

By Eric Staats of the Naples Daily News

OCHOPEE — Chris Nelson has no illusions that it will be easy to bag a python along the swamp buggy trail that twists and turns deep into the Big Cypress National Preserve.

Nelson, 41, a Miami-Dade firefighter, and his girlfriend, Norka Fernandez, 32, a dental hygienist, carry wooden poles with sawed off paint rollers on the ends. She sloshes through water that goes over the tops of her leopard print rubber boots.

They'll use the hooks to pull the nonnative invaders out of the grassy marsh. First, though, they'll have to find one. That's the trick, that and wrangling it into a pillowcase.

Their friends, health care contract manager Ramiro Torres, 38, and firefighter Shane Pyle, 43, wade nearby. Torres carries a machete at his side. The tip drags through the muddy water. Pyle carries his son, Tyler, 12, on his shoulders to keep him dry. Tyler sits tall in his perch, wielding a toy machete.

None of them has ever done anything like Florida's Python Challenge, a monthlong python capture contest that began Saturday. Game on.

"Keep your eyes peeled, babe," Nelson tells Fernandez.

***

"Alligator" Ron Bergeron tells a story about the time in 2006 he got in a fight with a gator and lost the tip of his right middle finger down to the first knuckle.

Last week, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission commissioner stood on an Everglades levee and told a gaggle of television cameras how hard it is to catch a python.

Ask anybody, and they will tell you this, but Bergeron has some swamp cred on the issue. When U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson needed an airboat to try his hand at python hunting in 2013, Bergeron volunteered his. They returned empty-handed.

"You're dealing with a snake that is camo'ed, just like my shirt," said Bergeron, a sixth generation Floridian and wealthy South Florida businessman. "I've waded through these swamps and actually stepped on the snake before, never even seen it until it took off under my feet."

Not only is his shirt camouflage, son is his Hummer, the one that says "Alligator Ron" over the back window. He wears a cowboy hat and boots, a kerchief tied around his neck and a metal belt buckle the size of a fist.

Most of the Python Challenge participants aren't experts in finding pythons, he said. A lot will depend on the weather luring the snakes onto the tops of levees or roads to stay warm after a cold snap, he said. They'll be easier to find there.

"With enough people looking you never know what you might turn up," said Conservancy of Southwest Florida biologist Ian Bartoszek.

But Bergeron said the success of the Python Challenge should not be measured in numbers of pythons captured. It's also successful in raising awareness about the dangers of nonnative wildlife on the Everglades ecosystem, he said.

And the pythons that are captured are useful to researchers. Necropsies on the dead snakes can show what they have been eating. Capture locations can help researchers keep track of where the snakes are living.

The python hunt this year includes a part of Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve where managers have the least data about pythons, stewardship coordinator Jeff Carter said.

"We're getting extra hands and eyes and feet out in the reserve that we don't normally have," he said. "It's a big plus for us."

***

Torres, one of Saturday's python hunters, is not afraid of snakes.

He grew up with a Columbian boa and a ball python as pets. They got too big, and he had to give them to a pet store. He doesn't know where they might have ended up, maybe out in the wild, part of the nonnative problem.

He stands along Turner River Road in the Big Cypress and looks down the long trail disappearing into the distance.

"We're going in?" he asks Nelson.

"We're going in," Nelson says.

There's money at stake: $5,000 goes to the person who catches the biggest python, $3,500 to the winning team. Prize money also goes for the largest number of pythons caught.

As Torres ventures further afield, his voice rises from somewhere in the head-high grasses.

"This is a bad idea," Torres said.

The team turns back when the water gets too high.

At the next stop, the sound of distant gunshots forces the team back to their pickup and Honda CRV.

***

If there were a gauge to measure the amount of pressure on the python population in South Florida, the Python Challenge would barely move the needle.

Although the hunt covers some 1.5 million acres, the first hunt in 2013 only bagged 68 pythons. That's out of a population that scientists estimate is in the tens of thousands — at least.

Pythons were first reported in the marshes and mangroves at the south end of Everglades National Park in the 1980s, likely unwanted pet pythons released by unwitting owners. Then in 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed a snake farm near Miami. More pythons wriggled to freedom. Sightings spread, eventually turning up in Collier County.

Photos of smiling people, shoulder to shoulder, holding up pythons began showing up on Facebook. When a python burst open trying to swallow an alligator whole, the photo went around the world on the Internet. A couple years later, the tables turned when a photo of an alligator chomping down on a python went viral.

A new big, bad constrictor was on the loose in Florida, and people couldn't get enough of it. By the time of the first Python Challenge in 2013, the chance to come face-to-face with Florida's newest eco-villain — and win — drew 1,600 players from 38 states and Canada. This year, barely 570 had signed up by last week.

***

Pythons are so hard to find because their coloration and patterns blend into the vegetation where they hide. Scientists call them cryptic.

Look for something out of place in the grass, hunters say. Pull it into an open area where it is easier to control it. Pythons are not venomous, but keep them from trying to wrap around your arms and legs. Pin its head down with the handle of the snake stick, and then grab it behind the head with the other hand. Smaller snakes are easy for one person to handle; larger ones might need more than one person to maneuver into a bag. Double bag it, the FWC advises.

A rule of thumb thrown around by python hunters: For every python you see, you've walked right past 100 others.

Those that do get caught, however, face near certain death. The ones that might be good candidates to be tagged and rereleased for research might survive the capture. Others are to be humanely euthanized.

"Here are several ways to accomplish this, including using a captive bolt or a firearm to destroy the snake's brain quickly and completely," says the Python Challenge Euthanasia Protocol.

The brain of a python can remain active for up to an hour, even after decapitation, allowing the snake to feel pain.

Draw a line from behind the python's left eye to the right side of its head and draw another line from behind the python's right eye to the left side of the head. The two lines will cross. Aim there.

***

The Conservation Commission likes to call it a python removal competition. It has trademarked the term Python Challenge. It has it's own logo — an oval with a writhing, hissing python in the middle and Python Challenge written across the top with the year on the bottom. The logo appears on everything from tumblers to trucker hats sold by the nonprofit Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida. T-shirts go for $25 each. Allow two weeks for shipping.

But all those pythons are a serious threat to the Everglades. One study has blamed pythons for the collapse of Everglades populations of small fur-bearing animals, like opossums and raccoons, an insult to the food chain that weakens the entire ecosystem.

Alarmed, the FWC made it illegal to keep a python as a pet in 2010. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed suit in 2012, making it illegal to import pythons or transport them across state lines without a permit.

The FWC has deputized specially trained python hunters to venture out and dispatch as many pythons as they could find. So far, almost 2,000 have been removed from the wild, according to state figures. Eventually, the FWC legalized year-round python hunting and opened it up to anybody with a hunting license.

Still, the python slithers on, a predator preying on government good intentions.

***

As the afternoon grows late Saturday on Turner River Road, Nokra finds a snake skin. The team finds a black racer. Pyle gets his fishing pole and catches a few bass in a lake. They see deer, wood storks and alligators.

They see no pythons. Rumor among the other hunters is that someone on Loop Road in the Big Cypress preserve had a trained dog that found an 8-foot python.

It gives Nelson hope for a second try, maybe next weekend.

"We'll look at the maps again tonight," he said.