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View Full Version : Gator Hunting in the Everglades.



Batch
09-18-2010, 02:05 PM
Or more correctly titled "Gator Hunting in The Everglades region.

Gator hunting in the everglades is allowed as a specialty hunt. It is open to residents and non-residents. You will apply for hunts in the areas you want and will only be able to hunt in your designated area. You MUST ENTER AND EXIT from designated areas in ALL of the everglades region hunts.

Most of the everglades region is off limits to hunting. All of Everglades National Park and all of the Western Everglades is off limits. The Western Everglades mostly Big Cypress Park is really the only place where you could hike.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y136/bigcypress/gatorhunt.jpg

The areas open to hunting are marshland and sawgrass. Trying to walk through this is going to be a nightmare to say the least. Sawgrass will cut your skin. During the day around gator season the average heat index will be around 100. Humidity will be in the 90s and it storms nearly every single day. Lightning is a given. At night is when you can legally hunt alligators and being in the sawgrass when night falls amplifies the misery.

Simply said you will be eaten alive by mosquitoes. The water is filled with snakes, gators and snapping turtles.

So people hunt most of this region by airboat or some other type of boat. But, mostly by airboat. Before airboats became common. Most folks that hunted gators used small plywood skiffs. They would take the skiff in by a motor boat and then use the skiff and a push pole to get into the back country. A team led by Alexander Graham Bell invented the first airboat. The first airboat registered in Florida was in 1920. Though they didn't really become common until around 1950.


Some of the Storm Water Treatment Areas (STA) do not allow boats or at least no boats with motors. You must access these areas only through a single gate that is opened a half hour before legal hunting time and is closed once the last hunter has signed out. These areas are only open to certain groups at certain times and are otherwise closed areas.

I prefer hunting the STAs because they have large gators in a tighter confined area than you find in places accessible by airboat. It allows me to use stealth on skittish gators that have had early season pressure put on them. I really prefer STA 1 West which is the triangular area labeled 407 and 408.

Rick
09-18-2010, 02:29 PM
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Batch
09-18-2010, 03:11 PM
All of the STAs are simular. Just marshy reservoirs designed to allow natural vegetation to treat storm run off water. They are used by gator hunters, duck hunters and bird photographers. But, you must either have a permit or arrange for your photography group to get access.

STA 5 (406)is the most remote. Being 247 miles to the nearest road... Just kidding. It is in a rural area. The dirt road is sometimes only passable in 4 wheel drive and there is no cell service. I guess you would have to walk 10 or 15 miles before you had a chance of a passing truck. Though even then they aren't really common.

601,602,603,and 604 are lake Okeechobee. You really aren't hunting the glades if your on the lake. I have hunted from Clewiston to Kreamer Island.

413 and 414 are STAs. 405 is about the only place you could really use a buggy or quad. But, outside of hunting season they have closed the area to 4 wheelers. I don't know how the gator hunting is there as it has been many years since I have been out there.

402 is my back yard. It has a levee that cuts through it and I have walked that levy many times. This mostly sawgrass and any heads you run into are going to be very, very thick and wet. It takes hours go go a couple hundred feet and the ground is floating peat.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y136/bigcypress/eastcoastbuffer.jpg

The greyed out are at the top is Loxahatchee National Wildlife Preserve and its not legal to take alligators there. I have photos of me in the water catching minnows when I was a very young child. They used to have a bait store there.

The point in the lower right of the grey area where it meets the East Coast Buffer is one of the legal access areas to launch your boat to hunt this area.

I live in Coral Springs about a mile east of the east coast buffer. If you look just south of coral springs you can see where Atlantic Blvd dead ends into the glades. There is a levee that goes west and then turns south west before dead ending into 27. That point has a small recreational point and a little tourist spot. That is another legal entry point.

The darker green area below the levee is called the bombing range. During WWII they ran bombing practice out there. The town of Weston is built over part of that range and they occasionally find unexploded or dummy bombs when doing new construction or landscaping.

This area is patrolled by air and airboat. If you have ever seen the TV show Operation Wild then when you see them patrolling by plane and airboat, this is the area they are patrolling. The road to the launch point on the east side is called Lox road. Short for Loxahatchee. If you watch the clip below you will see officers busting a group feeding gators. The spot they are standing is the airboat launch if you are hunting from this entry point.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/videos/operation-wild-dont-the-feed-gators.html

404 is a big swatch that is much of the same accept it has a lot of Mallelucca on its east side and while no longer legal we used to go a lot of riding in mudding in the eastern part of that area. It is not something you would choose to hike in though. Melaleuca is pretty boring stuff.

Batch
09-18-2010, 03:33 PM
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=26.28318,-80.298386&spn=0.046559,0.075617&t=h&z=14

If you click the lick above and look for Wiles Road and where it dead ends. You will see a well worn airboat trail. Follow it to where more trails converge and zoom into that point.

That is a camp. There are many camps out there. People can park off of Wiles and get picked up by an airboat and spend some times in the glades in luxury.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y136/bigcypress/acamp.jpg

Camp10
09-18-2010, 04:22 PM
So its a lottery to get a tag? That's how moose are done up here. It is a long shot to get a moose tag but I've been fortunate to have been drawn twice and my oldest son was drawn once. How high are the odds for getting a gator tag?

Batch
09-18-2010, 05:08 PM
Getting a two tags is pretty much a given in my area. But, getting first phase is what you want and then getting your area. Hunting from the bank as I do means longer casts when they get skittish after people have been hammering the bigger ones. Also they are concentrated in an area as opposed to being more dispersed around say lake Okeechobee.

It really depends on the are you want to hunt and the number of tags issued for that area. I usually go for STA1 West. Its reasonably close and holds big gators. You can spot from your truck and then sneak up close and cast.

Usually, if you miss phase 1, you'll get phase 2 or 3.

But, we have the biggest area. If your else where in the state it is probably harder to get. Here is the statewide map.

http://myfwc.com/docs/LicensesPermits/Alligator_hunt_worksheet.pdf