Meanwhile in Florida

[jfish1288]

I spent many years somewhat nervously giving the gators a wide berth when fishing. Then we started hunting them (snagging them with a rod and reel, not the swamp people baiting method). I was amazed by two thing: 1) There were waaayyy more gators in my area than I realized. 2) Unless you have a 3'' treble hook buried in their hide and have yanked them up to the boat, there is zero aggression towards humans.

I see them all the time on the Pearl river where we like to wakeboard- on weekdays. On weekends there is too much boat traffic and they tend to hide away in the lily pads, so we see a lot less of them. I don't point them out to people much anymore because it does make people nervous, but I don't worry about wakeboarding in the least.

This was taken at my hunting/fishing camp btw, and not even close to the biggest I've seen.

https://www.mdwfp.com/news/record-weight-alligator.aspx?alttemplate=mobileNews