Gator Encounter

[Stumpjumper]

I took my son & his friend to the lake sat. for some spearfishing.
About 10 min into the trip, the friend spotted a gator (about a 6 footer), so they both climbed into the boat.
I laughed, but 5 minutes later, as I worked the bottom, something caught my eye.
No more than a foot from my right hand, was a tail, and as I scanned down to the back, I realized just how big of a gator I had swam upon.
I couldn't get a glimpse of the head, since we only had 6 to 8 ft viz., & I wasn't interested in sticking around to see anymore.
Taking my eyes off of it was the last thing I wanted to do, but swimming backwards is no easy task either.
The first thing I thought of, was to take my trusty knife out & cut my line to my spear, & use the gun as defense, however, I wasn't wearing my knife.
Lessen learned.
I would have gladly parted with the gun however, along with the underwear!
:eek:

[zenspearo]

Holy crap. I'd rather deal with the great white we have out here...

Glad you made it back in one piece

[chuck41]

As a kid in Monroe, La I had friends that used to go "noodling" at night, but even those crazy cajuns had more sense than to spearfish in cloudy waters with gators.

[Stumpjumper]

It's not something that happens often, but I do have a friend that swam up on one earlier this year.
He came up on the head, & both went in opposite directions.
I feel lucky that I happened on this ones tail, yet I wonder what the gators response would have been had he spotted me. Not that I want to try it again, but would a gator attack a large object under water?
Again, I would have gladly lost my gun after shooting it in the head, thats if I could have steadied the gun.
The bright side is, we traveled a ways down the shoreline & finished the day with 21 Nice blue cats.
The vis was about 8ft.