Hog hunters in the news

[Circle C]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/state/2_men_charged_in_killing_of_enormous_tourist-drawing_gator.html

Not sure if they were running dogs or not. The location mentioned in the paper is adjacent to a property that I used to hunt. A 13 foot gator could have made a quick snack out of the dogs.


TexasJ,

    Have you ever seen this big gator on the bayou?

[matt_aggie04]

I am glad to see you found this story Chris, it would be interesting to find out who these hog hunters were.
MG

[Sean]

in the story it says their names were David Roach and Bryan Elliot(according to the story)

[matt_aggie04]

I don't know why I completely skipped over that whole paragraph there....thanks Sean.
Matt

[Circle C]

The part that I don't understand in the story is this.

Where they actually hog hunting? If so, how did they end up with a gator on a hook?   

Where the really gator hunting? If so, why call them hog hunters?

If they were hog hunting who gave them permission to hog hunt in the "protected coastal preserve"? Only person I have ever known to have permission to hunt that area is Daryl Marsh, and I think he was accompanied by the park mgr when on Armond Bayou property.

It would be interesting to hear the whole story, not just what has been printed, because based on what I am reading in the paper, I would be throwing the book at them.

[matt_aggie04]

I agree, might as well call them deer hunters since there are deer in the park.  The only thing I can think is that they were in the park on the pretense of hog hunting though that is not what they were hunting.  Don't know very many hog hunters that carry hooks...
Matt

[hillbilly]

It is bad to say they are hog hunting but I wish someone would kill all them dog eating critters

[TexasJ]

HHHmmm.  I heard that a 13' gator was killed but I didn't catch that much detail.  Matter of fact, I think I heard it was killed by Game Wardens because it was a threat due to it living in a small drainage canal.  I don't know if it was the same gator or not.  I knew some guys who were bow fishing for gar and saw that big gator and because the boat was so small and the body of water was also narrow, they were real afraid.  I doubt there were more than one 13' gators in the bayou, but I always heard talk about him.  I'm trying to think if I remember right because I want to say that I read a article somewhere that came out after the harvest season was opened to all countys a few years ago.  The article said that there were more 13'+ gators killed in that one seson than ever before.  The reason was because people always knew where the big gators were, it just wasn't legal to harvest them.  Most of the big gators were killed in the Trinity River, which stretches all the way up to Dallas.  Those countys were not opened to the new gator season.  Because the Armand Bayou gator was an attraction to kayakers and other folks, then its defaintly a misfortune.  I don't think that gator was really hurting anybody and since so many people knew about him, its too bad he's gone.  The rest of Texas doesn't need to worry though, there are still plenty of <13' gators out there.  I've heard of one at the mouth of Dickinson Bayou, I've heard of one in the Wallisville project (in a duck hole by my buddys house), and I've seen one at the only private damn on the Nueces River at the Pasiano Ranch in Three Rivers.  My buddy Brad (who is a TPWD biologist) was telling us that they are about to start drawing gator hunts from Choke Canyon and the next State record has a great chance of coming from there because the biolost are bragging already about them knowing where the monster gators are.  So there's plenty of big gators everywhere, Gator fest in Anahuac is a good example of that. 

[matt_aggie04]

At the risk of sounding cold hearted I could really give two chits less about one less gator in the world.....but I do care that the paper is helping shed a negative light on hog hunters when they are really dealing with poachers.  Just my .02
MG

[TexasJ]

I totally agree with you Matt. Why throw hog hunting under the bus when the guys intentionally went after the gator. They might have been out there on a hog observing expedition and discovered the gator and went back after him. My guess is that hog hunting was attached as the excuse of these guys being out there in the first place. Like Chris was saying, having permission to hunt that area is highly unlikely, especially if they were accessing from navigational waterways.  That specific gator was pretty well known so it seemed like only a matter of time before someone goes in and kills him. This reminds me of that Mr.Buck episode in West Houston where a nice buck that people could walk up and pet was killed by someone illegally.

My next question is the part of the story where the guys tried to kill it with a knife. I gotta call BS on that one. Nobody and I mean NOBODY would try and kill a 13' gator on a hook and line with a knife if they had a gun with them. Anybody who would write that into a story either is laughing about it, was fed bad information, or doesn't have a clue about nature.