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It’s happy hunting for gator baggers in Florida

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Roger McCulloch skipped a grizzly bear hunt in Alaska to drive 18 hours to Florida with one mission: shoot an alligator with bow and arrow.

“I love gator hunting,” said McCulloch, who owns an Ohio construction business. “It’s just the rush of it. I’ve hunted everything — caribou, bear, elk. Gators are tough critters.”

Special rules govern the bagging of gators. Hunters are not allowed to use guns. Instead, they may use a pole, spear, bow and arrow, or rod and reel to catch the animal, then use a bang stick — a pole with an explosive charge on the end — to dispatch it point-blank before bringing it into a boat.

This was McCulloch’s fourth visit in four years to hunt with Okeechobee guide Bobby Stafford, who charges at least $1,500 per hunt, supplying boat, gear, permits and crew. A few years ago, he guided McCulloch to a 12-foot, 1-inch monster that McCulloch, a part-time taxidermist, preserved for his living room.

This year, the state is offering 6,260 permits at $270 each, entitling a holder to kill two gators. Last year, hunters harvested 7,844. Gators as small as 18 inches can be taken, but most hunters want a trophy. The state record exceeds 14 feet.

McCulloch’s trophy room is full, so he decided to aim for the barbecue grill this year, meaning a gator in the 7- to 9-foot range.

Coasting down the Kissimmee River shortly before sunset, he spotted an 8-foot gator on a sandbar.

McCulloch stood on the bow of Stafford’s 21-foot bass boat, lifted his bow and notched a heavy fiberglass arrow with a stainless-steel chisel point. The arrow was attached to a reel with 250-pound-test line, allowing him to retrieve his prey or, if he missed, the arrow.

He shot the gator broadside from about 15 yards, but the arrow bounced off its armored back and landed in the bushes.

The animal didn’t budge.

Stafford reeled in the line as McCulloch brought out another arrow. Again the arrow bounced off. This time, the gator plunged into the water and vanished.

“An armor-plated gator,” Stafford said.

Hunting long into the night, they followed one gator nearly a mile before McCulloch got a shot — and missed.

About 1 a.m., he managed to hit a 6-footer firmly below its chin. The gator thrashed and rolled next to the boat as Stafford held the line.

“Get a harpoon in him!” Stafford yelled to his crewman, Dave Manna.

Manna did, but the point came out. It stuck on the second try.

Stafford produced a bang stick with a .44 Magnum charge, but before he could press the trigger, the gator’s jaws closed around it. Somehow the guide extracted the bang stick and dispatched the animal in the head.

When the gator went limp, the three men hauled it aboard and taped its jaws shut, and then Stafford severed its spinal cord.

“You feel better now you hit one?” Stafford asked.

McCulloch nodded. “I was starting to get upset.”

Not 20 minutes later, the hunters bagged their second gator, nearly 9 feet long. Their limit reached, they were done for the night.

The American alligator once was endangered but has rebounded, said Steve Stiegler, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He estimated that Florida is home to 1.3 million gators.

“Overall, the statewide alligator population is very healthy,” he said. “It’s a natural resource we can make use of that’s renewable.”

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