770 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 12, 1910. 
and ammunition; I had rifle and fishing tackle, 
so we traveled fairly light. 
For this kind of work, except in cold weather, 
it is my practice to wear old street shoes with 
holes cut in them to let the water out, and canvas 
leggins, and they were the thing for the tramp 
before us. As we got into the open water the 
dawn was lighting up things around us, and a 
moving sight it was. We walked nearly up to 
a hunch of white herons—American egret and 
little blue herons in white plumage—and we 
flushed quite a flock of great blues. Grebes pad- 
died over the surface, woodducks called all 
around, while the whistle of the yellowlegs came 
clear and sharp as the flocks flitted by. But by 
reason of the unforeseen difficulties we had en¬ 
countered with the boat, we were so much be¬ 
hind that we had to push on as rapidly as pos- 
by the time we had reached the middle of the 
sible now, and we should have been in the woods 
lake. The bottom was fairly hard in most places 
and the water averaged less than half knee deep. 
Occasionally one would step into an alligator 
hole that would take him up to mid thigh, and 
a muffled exclamation would let the other know 
what had happened. But the further marshes 
were reached at last, and there we flushed a 
black rail, the first I had ever seen alive in his 
native haunts. There was no question as to the 
identity of the bird, and that alone repaid me 
for the trip. 
The woods were reached at last, the latter part 
of the journey being through black peaty mud, 
deeper than the water in the lake. These woods 
being new ground to D., I pointed out a good 
stand and went on half a mile further myself, 
giving him the signals for coming out to the 
trail later on. It was sunrise, and the woods 
were very beautiful. There are some immense 
trees there, veritable forest giants, cypress and 
sweet gum, holly and black gum, pine and maple, 
and it is one of the most alluring tracts of pri¬ 
meval forest I know of. It was a most inspiring 
morning, though never a deer nor bear showed 
up. Sign there was in plenty, squirrels there 
were in great numbers, hawks screamed and owls 
hooted and the great red-crested logcoclc sent 
out his rolling drum call from the top of one 
of the dead forest giants. 
About nine the signal was given for D. and 
we started on our return trip. I wanted to §;et 
to camp by eleven or earlier. Half way across 
the lake are a couple of shallow holes, each sur¬ 
rounded in the summer by a ring of bonnet 
lilies, in which the bass congregate when the shal¬ 
low waters of the lake are too warm or too low 
for comfort. Here I wanted to stop and try 
for a mess of fish for camp. The sport is not 
great in this shallow water, but we wanted the 
fish, and the fun of catching them is something, 
if not of the best. D. took my rifle while I 
jointed up my rod, bent on a Parmacheene belle, 
and went at it. It is necessary to stand as far 
away from the hole as possible in fishing these 
places, and always dead to windward, so D., 
being properly warned, kept well out of reach 
of the flying hook. There was a great commo¬ 
tion as we got near, the bass plowing up the 
water all around, and one big swirl right in the 
fish hole rather puzzled me. I thought it might 
be an otter, and had strong misgivings about 
catching any fish even before starting. 
No response came to the fly, so a change was 
made to a silver doctor. Nothing happened, and 
I was making still another change to a white 
miller, when I heard D.’s low remark, “Look, 
Mr. B., what’s that over yonder?” Following 
the direction of his finger I saw low in the water 
the head of a great alligator. "Bring up the 
rifle quick, but don't make any more noise than 
you can help.” By the time D. had my rod 
and I the rifle, no ’gator was there. "Never 
mind,” I said, "he’ll be up again in a few minutes 
in about the same place.” Sure enough the great 
ugly head came up again very shortly, just the 
curve of the eye and the tip of the nose show¬ 
ing. Shining wet and glistening in the sun, it 
was a difficult mark to center the ivory bead on, 
and the first shot missed. “D.,” said I, “I’m 
going in close, and next time he will be my meat. 
*He can't possibly get away in this water, so you 
stand by to shoot if he should make a rush your 
way.” Quietly and slowly wo*waded out to where 
“Brother Yallergater” had last showed his ex¬ 
pressive countenance and stopped to investigate. 
Now these holes are in the line of an old 
drainage canal that once crossed the lake in a 
straight line from shore to shore, and the bed 
of the canal is still in evidence all the way 
across, the water in it averaging a foot or more 
deeper than in the body of the lake all along 
the line, the holes being deeper still. When near 
the bank of this old canal, there before us, clear¬ 
ly defined and not more than a foot and a half 
below the surface, was the great brute, slowly 
and cautiously crawling up the bed of the canal. 
“I’ve got you now,” I said to myself, and held 
the gun ready. When he came to a point ex¬ 
actly opposite to where I stood, he slowly turned 
and started crawling up the bank straight toward 
my feet. He looked a monster. I had killed 
a number in this region, the largest measuring 
nine feet exactly, though one or two eight- 
footers were the largest coming to me from this 
particular lake. I thought of the one of ten 
feet seven inches that had wrecked the canoe 
not more than half a mile from this place and 
hoped that mine might prove even larger. 1 
was counting that chicken before even putting 
the egg in the incubator, as you will observe, but 
the end of the interview seemed to me to be 
pretty well fixed now. When his snout was 
about four feet from my leggins, the top of his 
head was not over six inches below the surface, 
and I knew that his time had come. A high 
velocity bullet will do a lot through six inches 
of water, if sent in nearly perpendicular to the 
surface, and the 7 mm. is one of that kind. 
At the crack of the gun the alligator heaved 
his great body and tail clear of the water, and 
sank to rest, the head never moving after the 
shot. “Don't you do it, Mr. B.,” said D., as I 
put my foot on the broad expanse of his big, 
flat snout. “Better look out, he may be alive 
yet,” followed as 1 took hold of said snout and 
lifted it slightly. But the bullet had done its 
work, the brain cavity was well shattered, and 
the only life left in the great body was the re¬ 
flex muscular action that persists some time after 
death proper occurs. So we hauled him up 
across the old canal bank and stood around ad¬ 
miring his proportions. Subsequent measure¬ 
ments gave his length as nine feet nine inches, 
a good, sizable ’gator. He was one of the heavy 
built, old-timer type, in strong contrast to the 
slimmer built, more active type that have been 
more common in my experience. 
Fishing was resumed, but with no success. 
The bass seemed unusually active, so we both 
waded up to the other hole, a hundred and fifty 
yards further along. Here the bass were rush¬ 
ing about, too, but I could not get them to rise 
to fly or spoon. Finally the commotion among 
the fish became so great that we concluded that 
other and smaller ’gators were after them, or a 
family of otters. Something large plowed by 
D. "After him, D.,” I yelled; “see what it is 
and shoot if you get a chance.” Then something 
tore down the line of the canal right up to where 
the ’gator’s body lay, showing long and dark as 
it swerved from the impact with the great sau¬ 
rian. “What are they, in the name of good¬ 
ness,” I shouted. "Blamed if I know,” shouted 
D. in reply. "I think it is a school of small 
’gators.” The naturally clear water was now 
well muddied up by ourselves and the fish and 
the unknown, though still clear in patches.. We 
raced back and forth after the ripples made by 
the charging fish, and D. suddenly fired. “What 
was it?” “A great, big fish, the biggest I ever 
saw,” were question and answer flung rapidly 
back and forth in our excitement.- I chased a 
long, dark obscure object for fifty yards with 
spray flying right and left, only to see that it 
was a fish of some kind. D. fired again—he was 
using buckshot—but without result. He fired 
the third time, and stooping held up a big bass. 
“That’s what some of ’em are.” said he, "but 
there’s something about lots bigger than that.” 
This bass, by the way, pulled my pocket balance 
down to five and three-quarter pounds, a fine, 
symmetrical fish. I had never seen so many big 
bass before. Many were certainly considerably 
larger than the one we had, and sometimes the 
dorsal fin and broad back of a big one would 
show clear of the water as he plowed through. 
But they would not bite. I did finally catch one 
of about two pounds that I turned loose, as the 
big one gave us all the fish we needed in camp 
for a day or so. 
This was a most interesting fish experience. 
I did not know then and I do not know now 
whether all the turmoil was made by the bass, 
or whether there were otters about. All I do 
know is that several times we saw things that 
did not appear to be fish. D. said the creature 
that raced down the canal and showed against 
the ’gator’s side bit at the latter as he struck. 
To me it looked like something chasing a scared 
fish that ran into the alligator's body unexpect¬ 
edly, and that it was the pursuer that showed 
against his side, as the pursuer, too, met the ob¬ 
struction. We stood around and watched things 
for a while, entirely forgetful of camp and the 
expected hungry visitor there. Sometimes a 
whole school of bass would collect on the edge 
of a bed of thin reeds about fifty yards away, 
and then race for the hole in a body, throwing 
up a tidal wave on a small scale as they came. 
Single fish would swirl and dart about, and at 
times the shallows seemed almost alive with 
them. It may be remarked here that bass up 
to seven and a half pounds have been taken 
from this lake, though not for several years. 
Camp was calling and we had to leave, though 
not until the alligator had been dragged up on 
a sandbar a few hundred yards nearer camp, 
where we left him to be skinned later and hur¬ 
ried back. Dinner was started at once, but K. 
turned up before it was ready, wil'ingly forgiv¬ 
ing the slight delay, however, on hearing the 
reasons therefor. 
