Member for

15 years 3 months
Points
23.00

Recent Comments

Date Title Body
Did I miss something on

Did I miss something on Kugler? Not listed at center that only goes 2-deep.

Have seen him in person

Have seen him in person several times, albeit usually against lower-level competition, and he is impressive. Every December there is a high-level high school tournament here in Fort Myers called the City of Palms Classic. It usually brings in some heavy-weights from around the country. This past December he had to sit out with a stress fracture (foot I believe), which made headlines locally. The tournament is played at his school which is about 3 minutes from the office so I usually get to 5-6 games a season. I might try to post some thoughts/video now that he has committed. By all accounts he is a quality kid as well as a great basketball player.

76 - 68 UM

76 - 68 UM

82 UM - 78 Them

82 UM - 78 Them

Mich-83 NW-67

Mich-83 NW-67

One license

gets you tags for 2 gators. Licenses are picked on a lottery system where you have to select certain season dates and hunting areas to be legal.

Gator Hunting

The crazy thing about hunting gators in Florida is that you are only permitted to hunt at night (roughly 5pm to 7am). We either go out on the river in a small boat or we occasionally hunt from land if we can get permission to hunt an old rock mine property, or something similar.

When you are in the boat you are shining spot lights looking for eyes, which reflect orange/red when the light hits them. When you spot something with a good size you put in the trolling motor and edge your way up. This can be a long process of cat-and-mouse with the gator submerging and surfacing multiple times. If you are patient you can usually get close enough to either try to snag them with a treble hook (80 lb spider wire) or hit them with an arrow (bow fishing). Then the fun begins. I have had a gator on the line for over an hour and I've had them at the side of the boat in 5 minutes looking to take a chunk out of the fiberglass. When they get close we use a harpoon line to get better leverage and then we use a .45 cal "bang stick" to finish the job. (It sounds really neat and clean when I describe it like that but it is usually pure adrenaline and pandemonium.)

When you are on land you need to lure the gators to you, so we use bait. This is usually a rotten beef lung, which floats really well. After you get there attention it is the same process, either a rod and reel or a bow and arrow and the fight begins. In Florida you aren’t allowed to use baited hooks like they do on TV, so we have to rig the bait around blocks of wood. That way, if the gator gets away with the bait, they are going to survive. In my opinion its easier to hunt from a boat where you have a little high ground. Standing on the bank of a lake pulling an 800 lb, pissed of gator toward you has a certain "pucker-factor" to it that is hard to describe. They can run damn fast on land.

We then skin, clean and process the gator and usually sell the hides to a local buyer. This helps recoup a little of the license fee, which is about $270 for a resident and $1,500 for a non-resident. Hope that shed some light on it.

 

Southwest

Fort Myers area.

Love hunting as well

Grew up in Michigan and moved to Florida where the deer are more, shall we say, svelte. We do have some great Turkey hunting down here and the last few years I began gator hunting. The two in my avatar are from last season and we start up again in August. Its nothing like you see on the TV shows, much more like you would expect from a real hunt. I brought a friend of mine from Michigan 2 years ago and he was instantly hooked.

87 and sunny here

at least I got that going for me.

Appraising an orange grove

yeah, not even as exciting as it sounds. But almost time to head to the liqour store.

I saw the tweets

but didnt link it with Smotz. Just read something on ESPN where he said something along the lines of he needed to find somewhere were he could be happy.

Certainly wouldnt have guessed that

Anyone even hear any unsubstantiated rumors about this before it dropped?

Got a good feeling about this one

Last time I had this good feeling was SDSU so I'm going with it. 24-7.

805

805

Veterans Day

Luckily I was young and single when I served. I had many shipmates who had to leave wives and young children for months at a time. Every return was joyous, but every time we left again it was even more devastating. To me this is the biggest sacrifice that is also the hardest to measure. God bless our troops today and everyday.

652

652

They usually wont quick snap.

Most quartbacks don't want to snap the ball until the defense is set so the offense can set the protection/blocking assignments and identify pressure. Snapping the ball while the defense shifts could have positive and negative consequences for the offense as well.

Travel

I had not considered to travel issue...something about this one tells me Michigan big. Maybe just a gut feeling but Borges, travel and Denard have me all tingley on this game.

920

920

811

811

I'm in the same boat

I work for a small company and the boss is an FSU guy. Seems like we are having a contest to see who can walk by the other guy's office and find something other than college football on the computer...I think he's 0-for-15 today.

This is like childhood Christmas anticipation levels.

865

865