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FISHING FOR ALLIGATORS Good Sport and Big Game in Plenty on the Santee River. Onti Trophy o Four Hnndrctl Pounds and Thirteen Feet. My brother Tom, who is an incurable lover of the wilds, us I uni. had written me many mouths beforehand to le sure to arrange to moot him toward the end of August. Wc wero to hunt alligators on the lower reaches of the Santee. I say "hunt" rather than "fish for" because a good rifle is a necessary part of the tackle used in this exciting sport. Of coursi; I had written my brother to count on me. Next to strafing Fritzie, there is certainly no American sport more unusual, more diverting, and more enjoyable than going after alligators, writes Archibald Rutledge in Forest and Stream. There was one feature about this trip that added peculiarly to the pleasure of It; we were going out in the same spirit with which ranchers hunt timber wolves or cowboys follow catamounts. We were acting in self-defense. My brothers plantation has. as a considerable part of it, a large wild island on the Santee delta. On this island he raised his hogs some 250 head of Tamworths every year. Of these hogs the alligators had been taking heavy toll. Mv brother had already made away with several of the big solitary bull sators; but he was so busy during the early months of the year with the starting and the cultivation of crops on the plantation that he had had no time to hunt these monsters in a systematic way. He therefore decided to wait for my coming, and timed my visit so that it would fall during the period of slack work on the plantation. From Charleston I drove northward forty-two miles through pinelands. Those woods are full of deer, turkeys and quail; but as the time was in late August, my thoughts were of other kinds of game. 1 passed in this drive several large ponds or lakes in the woods; strange and melancholy bodies of water, surrounded by moss-draped cypresses, dotteTl with great lily-pads, spectral and silent and placid. FISH AND GAME IN PLENTY. I know these places to be full of large mouthed bass, perch, mormouth and even alligators; but I passed them without regret, for I knew that the sport on tho plantation would surpass anything that wayside sport of the journey might afford. 1 saw much small game along the road; fox squirrels, black and gray, covies of quail abont half-grown, and once a flock of young wild turkeys; there wore wxxlducks, too. In considerable flocks, .veiling but full-grown. At last, just before sundown. I reached the plantation gateway. Beyond, the old home welcomed me, and soon I saw my brother standing expectantly on the piazza, looking for me. It is a good thing for brothers, after long separation and after the years have begun to tell their story, to meet again as boys and to think ami feel and act as they did twenty years before. We sat down to a plantation dinner, and since the nature of such a dinner may be indefinite to the reader, I shall proceed to make him envious. Remember, it was midsummer, and the day had been a hot one. But the evening was coming, and the great plantation house was cool and shadowy. Martha, the ancient negro cook, brought in a snowy dish of steaming rice, and soon she supplemented this by the chicken that, in honor of my coming, she had donated to the feast. The first sweet potatoes of the season were on the table, with sugar oozing from their delicately browned skins. Wo had a huge pitcher of fresh milk for thirst. There were juleps also for good cheer. Finally I heard Martha puffing down- the hall, aud in she came with the most formidable watermelon that I havo ever seen. It had loen cooling for twelve hours in a barrel Of rain water. "1 saved this one for you," said Tom an he sank a long knife into the mejon, which, apparently at the touch- of the blade, cracked and broke open, disclosing a matchless heart, ruby red and frosted with cold. After that there were scuppernong grapes, muscadines, too, that i-ome of the negroes had brought in. Then we had cigars on the porch in the twilight, and perhaps other juleps, though on that point I am somewhat hazy. EQUIPMENT FOR GATOR FISHING. The morning found us ready for our hunt. My brother had seen to It that everything should be ready. We had a long rowboat, "big enough to carry three men and one bull alligator," Tom said. We had a .30-30 Winchester. Lying in the boat were a dozen significant-looking lines. These consisted of lengths of stout small rope, like a clothesline, about fifty feet long. To each was attached an alligator hook. My brother picked up one of these and said to me: "Do you remember how we used to try to catch gators with shark hooks? Well, you will also remember that we had mighty little luck with that big tackle. I have tried this scheme and it works to perfection. All I do is to take these two seabass hooks and lay them back to back. Then this heavy fishing cord is run through the eyes, allowing a loop by which the heavier line is attached. A gator, especially a wise old hull, will taste a large hook and will spit out the bait, hook and all. But he will swallow this kind of a hook because he never know that its in the bait until he has swallowed it." The last Item of our equipment was Prince. He is a negro of about my age. My brother and I had been brought up on the plantation, and he had always been with us in all our adventures and escapades. Xow, though a man, he was as much a Ih.v as either of us when it came to hunting or fishing. And let me say that when a southern negro is a woodsman, he is a good one. Prince had always been to us an invaluable man on any kind of a sporting expedition, and not the least reason for our wanting to have him along was on account of his prodigious smiling qualities. That smile of his can accommodate a whole slice from a twenty-pound watermelon. Hunt with a man who smiles, I say, and though you may lose your game, you will keep your religion. With a preliminary grin, presaging a day of old-time sport. Prince settled down to the oars, turned the boats bow upstream, and began to croon nn old negro melody, timing himself to the beat of the i oars. My brother had put me in the bow with the rifle: he kept the stern. "We want some geftor bait first," he had said, "but dont pass up a djnce shot at a good gator." HOW TO FiaH FOR GREAT REPTILE. As we moved along the shrouded shores of the Santee I was alert for anything that might suffice for bait for the lines. That country is fecund with life of all kinds, and we had not gone half a mile before I gathered in several swamp rabbits, some squirrel., five big owls and a water turkey. Any one of these makes excellent gator bait. At this time we began to put out the lines. A man must know how to set a gator line. An amateur would have no more success than would a tyro setting a trap for a gray wolf. First, a "crawl" must be located; that is, a place where, as tracks, mashed marsh and other forms of evidence plainly show, the alligator has been accustomed to come out to sun himself on the river bank. To a tree or to a stake driven into the mud near this the end of a line is attached. Then, having carefully concealed the hook in the bait, this is hung up above the water usually about a foot. This is done by sticking in the mud on the waters edge a dead forked stick that will collapse as soon as the line is pulled. The gator prefers to take his food in that way. Besides, if it were left in the water it would soon be devoured by the big bullheads and the voracious garfish with which this typical southern river abounds. Some hunters claim that the alligator prefers his meat tainted, but there is little to support this. True, he will ravenously take carrion, yet there is nothing to show that he has a predilection for it. Since most of his diet consists of fish, he must eat that fresh, and in hundreds of instances I have known an alligator to take, eat and apparently relish meat that was so fresh as to be hardly cold. As this account will, show, all the bait that wc used was fresh. I have, however, known of bait being taken after having remained on the line in the sun for several days. The fact is, the alligator is such an utter brute that delicacy in any manner, least of all in eating, is foreign to his nature. One by one wc set the lines in the manner indicated. Three times I shot at swimming gators, but the target was too difficult. The gator would show nothing more than his nose aud his eye, and as both he and I were moving, it was no easy matter to place a bullet in the little home-place right behind that bulging eye. However, my fourth chance gave me a score. I heard the bullet strike the hard place covering the alligators brain. The creatures tail was for a moment high in the air; then he did a nose dive. Finally he rolled over, his paws projecting from the crimsoned water. They looked gruesomely like hands. Prince meanwhile had rowed forward with all his might. Just as the alligator was sinking I caught him by his foreleg. The three of us drew him slowly into the bodt. Though dead, there were convulsive muscular movements, especially of tho tail, and these Prince eyed with rueful apprehension. "He dont die," the negro kept saying, " till sundown." It was a pretty specimen we had secured. It measured nine feet. Its color on the back and sides were the jettiest black, though, of course, stained with river mud. On the underside the color was creamy white. He would weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds. From the size of his teeth and the powerful development of his Jaws we Judged him to be an old gator a bull in the prime of his life: but he was not the monster that wo Were shortly to see. BIG BULL GATOR GETS INTO ACTION. We had set the last line, and were planning to go ashore for a little lunch. Our plan was to set the lines, to prowl . about on the mainland pine ridges for awhile, to rest there "and have lunch; then to drift downstream in the afternoon, revisiting the lines that we had set in the morning. But our little plan and our thoughts yearning julepward were to be upset. We were moving along quietly, a marshy bank almost overhanging tlr boat. The tide was rather low, and the waters in receding had left this mud-and-wnter reed bank apparently suspended. Suddenly, without warning, while Priote was crooning one of his mournfully sweet ditties, and while both Tom and I were rather drowsy from our setting the many lines in. the sun blazing on the river, like some gigantic black torpedo driven from the battleship wall of the bank, a huge bull alligator launched himself. He had been sleeping on that high muddy ledge where the tide had left him, and we had approached to within a few yards of him. His spring was the oddest and yet the most awe-inspiring spectacle that I have ever seen in wild life. His vast proportions, his dragon-like scales, the grim ferocity of the tightly set jaws and the formidable strength behind that launched spring had a paralyzing effect upon me. I heard my brother exclaim. I heard Prince behind me say. "O God! de grandpa!" I threw up the rifle and fired hastily while the tremendous reptile was actually in flight. When he crashed Into the water his impact jetted water all over us, while wild waves rocked lie boat. Beneath the surface he vanished. "Missed him," I said. "The blaiued thing scared me." "No, Capn," said Prince. "You didnt miss him. I done see how he land, on his side. If he aint dead, he will hab bellyache all summer." In confirmation of Princes opinion out of the apparently noncommittal waters of the river there rose steadily but driftingly the blood of the gator. As the bubbling up of oil indicates the death-wound to a submarine, so this blood indicated that the big bull had been reached by the .30-30. Yet whether the wound had been vital we could not say. Moreover, as the river at that place was about fifty feet deep, there was small chance for investigating. We wished to inquire after this submerged dragons health, but it was impossible. "He will rise," Prince assured us, "when his gall done bust." "And when will that le?" I asked. "By day clean day after tomorrow," the negro answered. And 1 was not unwilling to listen; for these negro sayings often have in them an element of truth. And, as matters turned out, we were to hear more of this same grandpa. Prince pulled us ashore to a little landing that formerly had been used by a lumber company. Here in the delicious shade that near a river always seems fragrant, on a pile of old cypress logs, we ate our lunch. My brother had filled the thermos bottle with julep, which, with the sprigs of tender mint in it made a man forget all troubles of this world and the next. We smoked and talked and watched the river, on whose yellow surface we could nearly always see the black head of an alligator. At one time, from this single point, we counted eightalligators. But we did not shoot at them. To miss them was to waste ammunition, and to kill them was merely to lose them in those deep waters. DEER, TURKEYS, RATTLERS, VULTURES. After our siesta on the logs we wandered back for a distance through the pines. We saw one buck, still iu velvet, but let him alone. There were plenty of fresh turkey tracks iu stretches of damp sand, but the birds were not seen. When Prince, -who was walking out a thicket of bays for us, thinking to start the turkeys so that we might at least have a look at them, began to shout that he had made the acquaintance of a rattlesnake, wc decided that it was time to return to the boat. But first we killed the snake a diamond-black with fourteen rattles. He had just shed his skin, and was of a most beautiful black-ind-gold shade. He seemed unusually irritated, and I have no doubt but that his new skin was tender, and that his nerves were thereby kept on edge. When we reached the boat my attention was attracted to a strange object floating down the river. It was perhaps the oddest sight that ever came Into my vision. Some carcass was evidently floating down. On it were standing three vultures, taking their obscene repast. Yet every other minute they would rise awkwardly in the air, while the floating body would be drawn under by some invisible power. We started iu the boat to see what might be adrift, and as Ave neared the buzzards reluctantly left it. It was a large hog. Following it were several gators which had evidently been disputing with the carrion birds the possession of the carcass. A little way down the river we noticed a vast concourse of these same birds. They were gathered at a certain place along the shore. The cypress trees there were literally mourning with them. We decided to investigate. We were still on my brothers property, this being the far northern end of the plantation, and we thought that some of his stock might have come to distress. When we reached the place the buzzards scattered in their heavy, disgruntled fashion. I was put ashore to "discover what tho birds were after. As the ground was clear of underbrush, it was no difficult task to look the place over, but there was nothing in sight. I circled for some time, but without finding any dead tiling. Finally, on returning to the boat, my eye fell on something bright that projected from a little pile of sedgy trash. I picked it up. It was an old can of sardines that some higli tide had drifted and lodged there. Carelessly I threw it into the boat. Tom and Prince eyed it. "Fish," said Prince; "and dats what them buzzards been after." It was as he had said. Hereafter, if anyone should question me concerning the scenting power of a turkey vulture, I believe that this example of the birds wonderful power in that respect -will be convincing proof. VARIED DENIZENS OF THE SWAMPS. As we drifted down the river we could not but be impressed with the abundance of wild life everywhere apparent. There was never a moment when at least one gator was not in sight. Sailing witli the characteristic splendor of his flight we saw a male bald-headed eagle crossing the delta. From quiet estuaries that made in from the river we flushed small flocks of woodducks. In a corner of a cypress swamp that we passed there were hundreds of snowy egrets. They had nested there, my brother told me, and he had kept the plume hunters away. Far up In the distant summer sky we saw a great flock of wood ibises great stately birds as large as great blue herons, with striking white and black plumage. In the thickety banks along the river there were birds innumerable chiefly these were red-wings, cardinals, brown thrashers and soras. But what made wild life seem most abundant was the positively amazing number of water moccasins. And these were the genuine things cotton-mouths with a vengeance. We saw them swimming, on the muddy shores, coiled in the marsh and lying on bushes that overhung the water.: Ugly brutes they were, with bodies about as shapely us the club-horn of a buck. Their temper is exceedingly irritable; their manner is truculent; their bite is deadly. At least their venom is highly virulent. But our boatman, Prince, had twice been struck and he recovered. One snake that struck him was quite small, but it struck him in the fleshy part of the leg. This bite gave him more trouble than the other, which had been dealt by a monster, which had, however, delivered the blow oil the shin, where there is small circulation. This shows that snake bite depends for its seriousness chiefly on the part of the body against which the blow is launched. The neck is probably the most vital. The point under the thigh where the great femoral artery nears the surface is likewise vital. I once knew a hunter to be struck there by a rattlesnake as he was sitting down on a log to have lunch. The venom was delivered so directly in the blood that the victim died within twelve minutes. On the other hand, I once had a negro woman run to me screaming from her work in a rice field. Lashed behind her with his fangs fast in the callous pad of her heel was a cotton-mouth. The snake was killed and the woman suffered from nervous shock only, for none of the venom reached the blood. A half mile downstream we came to the first line, which was as we hnd left it. Below, however, where the second was, we tsuw a white object, and the water was being kicked up by something. We thought at first that the object was a dead egret, but this proved a mistake. Oddly enough, it would appear on the surface and then reappear. Not until we were fnirly upon it did we discover that it was a small gator, about five feet long, fast to the hook. But It was not alive. It had been killed by a monster gator, which had actually been playing cannibal as we came up. I did not see this "second alligator, but the dead one showed the unmistakable marks of huge, blunt teeth, and the tanned skin, now in my possession, showed the odd holes. We hauled the gator aboard and continued our course. SONG OF THE WOUNDED SAURIAN. As we were pulling away from shore there canr to our ears one- of those sounds which is rare in nature and awe-inspiring. The lion can thrill with his roaring; the timber wolf can with his howl. I havo heard a wild bull on a lonely sea island make a fearsome noise. The bull alligator can sing such a song, and it was such a solo that we heard. It is not often that a man is privileged to hear that sound in the wilds. It bears small resemblance to the commotion that gators In a reptile house sometimes set up. It is long-drawn, deep, melodious in a fearsome way. It seems to be the challenging call of mature bull; but it may serve as a love note as well. It is seldom heard save in the early spring and at night. It therefore surprised me much to hear it late in the summer On a bright afternoon. As we passed down the river the note became more formidable. It had In it an indefinable grimness. We wondered if we were to see the great creature, and if so, would it be possible to get a shot at him? As we neared one of the lines we saw a black form lying high on the surface of the water, in a position most unusual for a gator, which Is used to slinking along the surface. I had my rifle up for a shot when Tom said, "Hes hooked. Dont shoot yet." "Dats the same halligator whats doing tho singin," Prince said. Both he and Tom were right. The bull was on the line, and his roaring had !ccn due to pain, or else to a melancholy view of the situation in which he found himself. As far as my experience extends this was the first instance of an alligator giving vent to any sound when hooked. There wan something terrible and impressive about this huge saurians complaint. But he was not too sorr.v for himself not to show fight. He plunged beneath the surface as we neared him. I had to get out and take hold of the line. Wc had a sharp tussle for five minutes, but I couldnt bring him from the bottom. My feet sank in the mud, aud the rope seemed to sink in my hands. Finally Prince came to my rescue. Princes feet, through a lifetime of joing barefoot, supported him on soft mud as inowshoos would on snow. He brought the great bull to the surface, and the rifle finished him. Tom said lie was especially glad to get this old bull, for from the island near where we had caught him a dozen or more half-grown Tamworths had disappeared, and no doubt this gator had accouuted for them. He was large enough to bear the blame for almost any kind of a raid. His length was thirteen feet, and his weight was well over four hundred pounds. PLENTY OF ALLIGATORS ON HOOKS. Wc could not take this monster into the boat, so we towed him down to a landing, where we left all three alligators. Prince disappeared for a moment, and on returning he was followed by several negroes of that part of the plantation. All of them were busily sharpening knives, smiling and looking with satisfaction at our kill lying on the shore. We have a regular agreement on" the plantation that the negroes can have all the gator meat if they will deliver to us the hides, well skinned, and the teeth. Alligator steak, especially that cut from the slab-like tail, is sald to be excellent. I have not sampled any as yet, for it is reptile flesh, but the negroes declare that it makes a man happy jnd courageous. Between that landing and the house we caught four other gators on the set lines. Judging from the bait that was taken, squirrel was the favorite, with barred owl a close second. None of these alligators was more than eight feet in length. But seven in a short day was going pretty strong; then there was the leviathan which had jumped off the shelving bank. As I said, we were to hear from lnm. It was the next afternoon that a dusky hunter came to the house to report that the "grandpa ol all de gators" had gone ashore on the far southward point of the island. When questioned as to the creatures wounds, he said, "One ball, sub, done darken his eye." Tom and I visited the place a day later. There on a marshy shore lay the vast reptile. On account of his condition we could not save the hide, but we measured him as. he lay fifteen feet nine inches! My chance shot had gone home, and the tide and the creatures convulsions had brought it down the river. It had risen as Prince had predicted it would, and then had drifted ashore. We got the teeth from that bull. They look like young elephant tusks. I have described the one days alligator hunting. There were others to follow, and .ere the weeks came to an end, Tom and I were to have twenty-nine hides drying, preparatory to being tanned. We had not killed off all the gators by any means, for there were still many in the river, but we hi!! iccounted for some of the worst of the old rascals. Even Prince, who is phlegmatic by nature, was impressed by the extent of our sport. "God Amighty," he said meaning no irreverence, "but we done make a Avar on dem halligator. Capn," lie added to my brother, "dem hog can root in peace now."
