Well, made it through day 1. My body feels like I've been wrestling full grown cattle in neck deep water all day
Out of the 65 head, we caught and put on a trailer 30.
Started the day off with 9 airboats, 3 deck boats, 10 stock trailers and a tractor to back the trailers down into the river so we could float the big ones on. Turns out this is(or was) a 150 acre island out in the St. Johns river that these cattle have never left(brought out six yrs ago by barge and not since been touched).... which explains why our attempts to drive them across the river to our catch property was a bust. We fooled around with trying to drive them for about an hour, finally realizing that they would rather ram an airboat than swim a river
Time for plan B... rope 'em, snub 'em to a tree, hog tie them, dolly their head to a boat and drag their but to the trailer... which we ended up doing 32. Basically, we had to get out on foot when the herd entered a bay head, 6-8 of us with ropes, stalk them in 3-6' of water, rope them and then rap around a tree... quick like
All the while trying not to drown the flailing, airborne, bovine wrecking balls that tried to charge us at every turn. Once snubbed, the "catch team" went into action, which consisted of myself and another large fellow who would jump on the animal and wrastle/ride it till we got it flipped. Once flipped we turned the noose into a bridle and snubbed the nose up so they wouldn't drown. Then, hog tie, every stinking one of them... Never have I hog tied so many full grown cattle in one day...my jaw and ribcage still hurt as I'm typing this.
Lost two bulls, one went nuts when roped and ran out to deep water and drowned, the other one died after being tranquilized by a vet
... Oh well, they all would've died if we hadn't gone out there anyway. One bad injury, my fellow catch dog got his knee blown out when a rank yearling sky rocketed on us, landing on his outstreched leg
. We had generations of old time cattlemen out there with us and they all said the same thing, "we ain't never seen nothin' like this!" Every cabbage palm had at least one moccasin in it and usually a pigmy rattler or two. Every nasty biting, stinging insect know to man was clung to every floating object waiting for us to pass by so they could jump ship and naw on us instead... Good fun
By the end of the day, the local news helicopter, sherrif's dept. and game warden had all made appearances... some were nice, some were not so nice
My camera got swamped after the first hour, so no crazy action shots. However, we're going out tomorrow to catch the rest(including 10 full grown BAD bulls
) and I'm taking the wife's camera, so hell or high water , I'll have some crazy pictures.... even if I have to sit out a round and watch the fun.
The "A" team
The line up
Heading down the "woods road" down to the river
The river and bay head that all the work happens in...
