LIFESTYLE

A novice tags along with a couple of experts

Emma Discher Staff Writer
Dallas Perque pulls an alligator into the boat during a hunt earlier this month.

For someone who has never been hunting, alligator hunting was an interesting way to start.

I went into my first alligator hunting trip with no idea of what I was about to witness and not even having watched an episode of "Swamp People," which everyone seemed to reference when I told them what I had been up to that day.

After the day trip, I came away with not only a better understanding of what it means to hunt alligators but also impressed with the amount of work and skill that goes into it. I accompanied Dewey Gravois of Chackbay and Dallas Perque of Vacherie on one of their days out.

Before anyone can do any actual hunting, he or she will need to get permission to hunt on the land, as well as tags. Every alligator that is caught needs to be immediately marked with a plastic tag through the tip of its tail. This tag stays with the alligator until it’s finished being processed and gives information on who caught it and where.

Then hunters need to set out traps, which can take a whole day by itself. This meant chunks of chicken on large metal hooks tied on a long string to a tree branch hanging over the water. We checked 53 lines on my day out, 23 at one spot near Donaldsonville and another 30 closer to Houma.

Once we found a gator on a line, the men would carefully follow the string until they located it in the murky water. With one swift shot to the head, the gator would be dead with only a few splashes, if that. I was expecting a fight, but for a trained hunter not looking for a show, it was easier than that.

When I complimented Gravois on his efficient shot, he just chuckled.

“When you do something for 30-plus years, you get good at it,” he said.

They’d haul the gator in the boat, stack it on the others, re-bait the line and move on to the next. We spent about five hours in the boat that day, and they only expected to catch six to 10, though they ended up with an exceptionally lucky day of 19.

The largest we caught was around 8 or 9 feet, but Gravois and Perque caught a 14-foot alligator later that weekend. While we were out, we saw a recently hatched nest of babies that were only about a foot long.

Opening-season prices for alligators are $20 per foot for a 9-foot or longer gator, $17 for 8 feet, $13-$15 for 7 feet and $13-$14 for 6 feet, according to local hunters and processors. One local processor said that was 30 percent down from last year.

For a full day of hunting, Gravois and Perque earned about $2,000 combined  for 18 of the alligators. The processors couldn’t take one because it had died on the line. If they had only caught the expected number, then the earnings would have been half of that. That amount of money for one day’s work still sounds like a lot, but the season is only open for 30 days.

The season opened the first Wednesday of September in the east zone, which is essentially from the Atchafalaya River east to the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, and it opened on the second Wednesday in the west zone.

I can’t imagine hunting alligators every day for a month, which many hunters do to make much of their yearly income, and my main duty for the day was just to avoid falling out of the boat.

Alligator hunting seems to be an increasingly tough way to make a buck but an industry that’s certainly unique to our state.

Though I don’t see myself suiting up for many more alligator hunting trips, it’s always special to have a first-hand experience with something that most people only see on television. If a chance to join a hunting trip ever comes your way, I strongly recommend accepting, especially if it’s out of your comfort zone like it was mine.

-- Staff Writer Emma Discher can be reached at 448-7636 or emma.discher@houmatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @emmadischer.