Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Ep.20 Exploring Florida's Wild Side: Hog Hunting and Gator Wrangling with Justin
Craving an insider’s peek into Florida's wild, untamed side? Join us for a riveting conversation with Justin, a seasoned guide from Plant City, who takes us through nearly two decades of exhilarating outdoor adventures. Raised on fishing trips with his grandfather and fueled by a passion for the great outdoors, Justin recounts his fascinating transition from a farming and fishing background to becoming a master of hog wrestling and gator lassoing. His knack for capturing wild boars with hog dogs, a tradition dating back to the Spaniards, has garnered him a loyal following and a successful career in guiding.
Ever wondered what it’s like to hunt wild hogs in Florida’s thick, swampy terrain? Prepare for a deep dive into the varied techniques Justin uses, from airboats and swamp buggies to the classic spot and stalk method. He shares the unique challenges of controlling Florida's hog population, their rapid reproduction, and their adaptability. And don’t miss Justin’s thrilling tales of lassoing alligators, a skill he honed from a young age on farms and ranches, likening the adrenaline rush to wrangling dinosaurs.
But it’s not all about the hunt; Justin sheds light on the behavior and characteristics of alligators, the intricacies of their nesting habits, and the fascinating science of temperature-dependent sex determination of their eggs. Wrapping up, we explore Justin's interactions with clients on fishing and hunting trips, the importance of safety during these adventure-filled outings, and how he connects with the outdoor community through his website, Wet and Salty Adventures. Whether you’re a seasoned hunter or a curious novice, this episode promises to captivate with wild stories and expert insights into Florida's rich outdoor life.
Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!
this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken mara. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how to's. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast, all right, welcome to Hunts on Outfitting podcast. The only podcast brought to you by Hunts on Outfitting and by Wills. Where the hell did that load go? Wild trucking it's there somewhere. Wills Crazy, wild, awesome and just plain out of the ordinary are words I would use to describe today's podcast guest's life.
Speaker 1:To him, though, it's an ordinary day in the life of a hog wrestling, gator lassoing and airboat maneuvering. Floridian, he is very fascinating to listen to and has some wild stories. If you guys enjoy the podcast any, we just hope you share us out. That's it. That's all. This was a really fun one to do. I hope you guys enjoy it. Now let's get into it. Yeah, justin, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. You're a really interesting guy, just yeah, there's a lot of stuff to get into. Talking with you, you definitely look like you live in the dream. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're from?
Speaker 2:All right. So I'm from a town called Plant City it's in kind of south central Florida, it's kind of world renowned for strawberry production. It's the strawberry capital of the world. More specifically, I'm from a town in Plant City called Springhead. I'm 41 years old, I've been a guide and an outfitter in Florida for almost 20 years and, yeah, I spend seven days a week on the woods and in the water chasing things and running things over and having a good old time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're living your best life. You might say.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I just don't consider it work, man. There's nothing I do. You know, Skinning a deer or a hog or an alligator is about as hard as I work, and it ain't a job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I hear that. So what do you? I mean, how did you get started in the outfitting?
Speaker 2:So I have a fishing slash farming background. As far as my relatives and my ancestors and where I came from and my grandfather was an avid fisherman, he was a tournament bass fisherman. He always did really well with bass. So from a very um, I've been, like I said, hunting and fishing and and I remember when I was a kid, especially on Fridays, a lot of times, uh, my mom, she would leave for work and she would drop me off to catch the bus at my grandparents' house. Well, my grandpa would get the boat and he would come to the front yard and he'd pick me up and we'd go fishing. And this was back before the time that your school would call your house and say you weren't there. Oh, so you could get away.
Speaker 2:You know, so oh yeah, I used to skip school about, you know, two Fridays a month just to go fishing. So and it kind of started from there and I had a love for the outdoors, you know, and hunting and fishing. I just naturally took to it and you know kind of. You know, in high school I had different jobs and I bagged groceries at a grocery store at one point and I've done several different things in my life and you know I'd wake up in the morning, hate the alarm clock because it took me to a job that I hate to do with people, that I hated to do it with.
Speaker 2:And I had a buddy tell me one time he said man, you know you're real good at finding and catching them hogs. You know you should be able to make a living doing it. And that's when I started reaching out to these different ranches that guided hog hunts and majority of the ranches that would do guided hog hunts if you came as a guide, most people didn't bring their own dogs and the fact that I had pretty good dogs that would go find and hold up a hog for me, you know that's I didn't have a problem, you know, finding work as far as that goes, and then it just kind of exploded from there, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, so your your first introduction to guiding you were. You were right into with the hogs and all that you weren't doing. You know dove hunts or anything right in with the with the wild boar.
Speaker 2:No, it was. Yeah, it was right, it was right in, it was right in. So that's something I've always hunted and I've always had hog dogs since I was a kid and always hunted off airboats, hunted the bo him what I could do and I showed him you know that my ability with the people uh is pretty good too, you know, since humor, being able to show people a good time and things like that you know it's uh, it all kind of worked out and it worked out fast.
Speaker 1:That sounds like the coolest job interview I've ever heard of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Since we're on that subject, why don't you tell us a bit about the dogs that you do use and how you did get started with the hog dogs, Because I just find that really fascinating just how they work.
Speaker 2:Okay so hogs were originally introduced in Florida by the Spaniards. Okay so, 100 years ago, in days of old, or several hundred years ago in days of old, what you would do is they would take their dogs, you know, which, just basically would guard the yard, you know, just an old yard dog and they would go catch these hogs and you would castrate the boars, which, once you castrate a boar, you know, he don't care nothing about the sows, all he does is eat and get big. At that point, and everybody had a very specific mark. You would mark the ear of the pig with, um, and, and in that minute was your pig, you know, and if I just so happened to kill a pig that was yours or had your mark, you know, then we would split the meat, and that's kind of where it started. And then, and the tradition, just you know, kept on from there.
Speaker 2:Um, now, as far as dogs, um, the original hog dogs in Florida stemmed from cattle, dogs. So Florida was the first state in the in the 48 to have cows and horses. Juan Ponce de Leon brought cows and horses to the West coast of Florida in 1521. And then, shortly thereafter, a man decided he needed dogs to help work those cows. So you know, basically we use what we call a cur dog, c-u-r, and it's just a mixed up dog and you know, I'm sure you've heard of cur dogs, yeah, like a black mouth cur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now black mouths are now registrable dogs, so they're considered like a purebred type of cur dog. They're considered like a purebred type of curdog Um, but you know, uh, a lot of times these cow dogs are a Catahoula or a Catahoula leopard dog, um, and they, they mix them with a little bit of curdog or a little bit of bulldog or a little bit of pit bull, you know, or you know a terrier, if you want a little more bite in them or something like that. Um, pretty gritty dogs. You know a lot of these, know a lot of these, a lot of these cow dogs and hog dogs. I love watching them work. That's, that's probably the my favorite part about it, you know, is having a good dog and watching them do their job well yeah, yeah, no, I love a working dog uh, hounds, hounds aren't.
Speaker 2:Hounds are used down here a lot in um, in the management areas or the public hunting areas, you know, uh, to run hogs, but, uh, on private lands, there you know they're not the main breed. You know a lot of people are going to be using, like I said, those Catahoulas, those leopard dogs, those cur dogs, um, or we, or what we call a shotgun dog or a running gun dog, and that's just like an old red nose or a terrier, a dog that when you see him or you put a spotlight on him, he catches him and that's that.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah, that's neat. And then I mean, how do you is it bred in these dogs to get the boar, or they just, they just had that that catch drive in on their meat. Dogs kind of thing, Uh, dogs kind of thing, uh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So they, they have a lot of they have a lot of it, a lot of it in them. Now I've I've seen dogs come out of really good stock as far as the mother and the father and the grandparents on both sides be working dogs. I've seen dogs come out and not work out, uh, and then I've seen dogs that didn't come from anything and work very well. I think the biggest thing, especially here in Florida, the consistency is key.
Speaker 2:Man Consistency is key because you know you got a dog and if he's not conditioned properly you don't use him properly. You know it's going to affect him in the woods and how he, how he behaves and how he works. And you know, I've never, I've never been to Canada, but I can imagine that the cold would probably have sort of a same you know issue. And you know I've never, I've never been to canada, but I can imagine that the cold would probably have sort of a same you know issue. You know if the dog wasn't used to the cold, because out here, you know, if you don't take a dog out for six months and then you take him, you're talking with the heat index and and, uh, humidity you're 80 per 75, 80 relative humidity, sometimes in a and 110 with the heat index yeah yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:So it gets super, super warm down here about 10 and a half months out of the year yeah, so the dogs.
Speaker 1:That's probably the biggest thing for us yeah, just having them always in shape and ready to go to deal with that kind of weather, yeah, yeah, and you know it's.
Speaker 2:I tell people it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what kind of animal you're hunting with a dog, and it don't matter where in the world you're doing it if you don't take the animal. You can't get mad at the animal when he doesn't do what you want him to do. Yeah, you know so. Yeah, and that's, you can't catch him from the couch. That's what I say, yeah yeah, no, that's very true.
Speaker 1:Uh, so with I mean, how does it work on the hunt? If you could explain that. You know some of the guys listening.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so, uh, typically, um, uh, a hound. If you're hunting with hounds, it would be sort of like you would be hunting a big cat or a bear, other than the fact that a big cat and a bear can climb a tree and a hog can't. So a hog is going to do sort of like um, I'm sure you've seen bears or cats bait up, they're going to do the same thing. A hog is going to a hog is going to find a big tree that's blown over and he's going to back up underneath that root ball where they can only get to his face, you know, and he and he's got his teeth up there to work with to protect himself. Um, so, uh, a lot of times people will run them across the road with the with the hounds and then shoot them crossing the road.
Speaker 2:Um, now, with the cur dogs, typically, you're either going to have, um, a bayon dog which just basically will chase the hog down, you know, and sometimes reach up and bite them on the back hands and stop them and spin them around and stay in their face and bark at them and basically let the hog know hey, man, if you turn away from me I'm going to bite you, you know, if you don't give me your full attention, you're going to get bit and he'll stay there and stay barking and then the hog will be bait up. And then you'll take a catch dog in there, a dog that don't do a lot of barking, and he'll run in there and typically catch a hog by the ears. Catching him by the ears it's it's, it doesn't hurt him, you know, um doesn't do any damage to the hog. Now, some people, um, you, you seen that that uh video, that dog I had in that video I put up that bobtail dog. Now he is uh, he's good about finding them, but he doesn't do a lot of baying, right?
Speaker 2:Um, he'll only, he'll only bark at one about two times and then he's like no, I'm gonna eat. You you know. So you know you either bay them and then catch them, or you just have dogs that are real gritty and, um, they get pretty smart. You know dogs will get up and they'll say, well, I might not, can handle this hog by myself, and they'll bay them till they get help or some of them realize when he's too big yep, yeah, 100, 100, 100 they will.
Speaker 2:And I know dogs it'll try a hog, one or two once or twice, you know. By trial one I mean he'll try to catch him and if that hog throws him and that's when they're like all right, I need to, I need to stand back and make a little noise until somebody gets here to help me.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, that's cool. Uh, what way do you guys normally hunt the hogs? Are you guys on an airboat? Are you just kind of spot and stalk walking?
Speaker 2:Are you in a buggy, and we've got a lot of management areas here, or WMAs wildlife management areas which are public hunting opportunities. Some of them are 58,000 and 60,000 acres apiece, I mean. So there's quite a bit of land Now on public property. They dictate when you can go, what you can use, stuff like that. But on private land here in Florida're a wild hog is considered domestic livestock and and it's the landowner's property upon whose land they occur at the time. That's what the rule book says. So if they, if they're on your land, they're your hog. You can, you can do with them as you see fit.
Speaker 2:So, um, now we don't do the helicopter hunts like they do in texas just because we don't have we don't have um the big open fields. Yeah, it's just real thick here. Um, yeah, so we don't have. We don't have um the big open fields yeah, it's just real thick here. Um, yeah, so we don't have that. But, um, airboats is.
Speaker 2:Airboats are a fairly popular way to do it, but, um, not a lot of people have airboats to do it with. Um, you know, we got a lot of airboats here in florida, but a lot of high end like race style boats and cruiser boats. You know, like what I call a cold beer boat. Yeah, you just ride around and hang out with the buddies, drink a few beers, um, so that's, that's real popular. And then we do swamp buggy hunts as well down here. And then spot and stalk is a big thing too, um, so it's, we do a little bit of everything here. You know, still hunting with archery equipment. You know, the cool thing is is there's no size or bag limit on hogs here in Florida and you can hunt them year round. You can thermal hunt them at night. So there it's just an endless opportunity. Florida, because and because of our non-native and invasive species here in Florida, it's a very target, rich environment, Tons of stuff to shoot at here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it looks like a lot of fun, uh, with the hogs. I mean, if everybody was out hunting them as much as you were and all that, do you think you would ever get ahead of how many there seems to be?
Speaker 2:no really wow no, absolutely not, absolutely not now. Um. So we're. There's a lot of construction going on in florida right now. Um we have a lot of people moving here from other states now why they're moving here from others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, why they're moving here. I'm not going to get into that, it's a whole another talk show. But uh, they're moving here and and so there's a lot of construction. So it seems like they're becoming concentrated in the areas that they like to frequent. Excuse me, okay, um, so you know, we're just losing natural habitat for the hogs to be in. So, like I said, you know now they're being concentrated in areas.
Speaker 2:But the thing about it is too, is that a hog don't need much. You know, a hog can live in a pile of bushes in a store parking lot and be just fine. They don't need a lot. So it ain't like they need so many acres per hog to survive. They're so adaptable lot, so it ain't like they need so many acres per hog to survive. Um, so it just. Yes, they're super adaptable and they're in. Their gestation period is about four months. So, theoretically speaking, they could have right around three litters a year. You know, um, on average of of 13 to 15 pigs. Each time they they a litter, um, so they, they breed like rats. You know, there's a bunch of them now with the hogs too?
Speaker 1:with you know when? If sows got her litter? Uh, is there many animals that like? Would you know? Did they have a lot of predation on them? Was there any animals that would like? Oh, there's a, there's an easy meal. Or, with the way the sows are, they're just like. No, it's not worth it.
Speaker 2:Well, florida panthers and black bears will prey upon them. Bobcats, alligators, foxes, coyotes Now there's only a few animals that can take pigs and really don't need to worry about the mom, and that's going to be the Florida Panther and the Black Bear and the Alligator. That's it. Other than that, everything else, because there's there is not a coyote in the state of Florida or in the southeastern US that won't say pissed off mama pig after them. They're just extremely strong, extremely rough, extremely resilient, you know. So they can definitely take care of their own for sure.
Speaker 1:It's not an easy meal.
Speaker 2:Oh no, lord. No, not an easy meal at all, I tell you. I see bald eagles carry piglets away every once in a while, you know. But yeah, mama can once. Once they're snatched up and grabbed. At that point mama can't help them.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, pigs can't fly no, nope um, yeah, that's really interesting, all that dog stuff. And then you know, I'm excited to get to and, as well, I mean, my buddy and I were watching a video before we had you on here you're, you're lassoing gators, you're lassoing dinosaurs, basically that's yes nuts. How did you get into that?
Speaker 2:well, um, so it's, it's kind of, it's kind of interesting, like I said, starting off young, um, you know, being on farms and ranches and stuff, and a lot of times here in Florida these farms and ranches have permits to remove alligators or remove certain depredation type animals, animals causing a problem. So it's out of necessity. You know, I remember the very first time that I jumped on an alligator by myself, I played baseball, I played Little League, yeah, and there was a ball rolling in the outfield and a ball hit a piece of wood. Well, that piece of wood opened its mouth and spun around. It was an alligator and, yeah, it wasn't very big at the time. You know, he was only about four feet long. But I'm like, know, he was only about four feet long, but I'm like, okay, well, you know, this should be pretty easy. I've seen it on TV. Let me, yeah, let me try it. So I hopped on his back and got him held down and, um, you know, and like I said, I I had watched a lot of, uh, nature shows in my life and I I was like, well, I could probably do this.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of where it started. And then, you know, I was working on a ranch and somebody said well, we got a gator, it needs to be. You know, it's causing us a problem, does anybody have any experience? And I was like well, technically, by definition, yes, I have experience and I can handle it. So, you know, I did a lot of catching them by hand and then, you know, I got to where I can throw a rope pretty good, and so I just started incorporating the rope in my gator catching and the rest is history.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I think at my ball games the most exciting thing we had was a squirrel would go on the field or a deer and you're catching gators. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the Florida stories about you guys being a little more wild than the average bunch definitely sounds to be true if you're jumping on gators at the ball game.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it it does. It happens a lot. You know there there's been a lot of times where you know I'm driving and traffic's backed up and you don't know what's going on. And you finally get up there and you know the sheriff's department, there's a gator laying in the road and he just decided, well, I'm just going to lay here because this pavement or this asphalt is nice and warm, and I'm going to lay here. So I asked the cop. I'm like hey, ben, you know what? Like are you going to move him? I don't really know about that, you know. I'm like OK, well, can I move him? Are you qualified? I'm like yeah, sure, you know, and then I'll just grab him and pull him out of the road. You know, I'll tell you a funny story.
Speaker 2:I had the police department call me one time and they had an alligator that made its way onto somebody's front porch, like you'd see in the news. The lady hears a knocking at the door, a tapping, so she opens the door and there's an eight-foot gator laying there. So they called me and I grabbed the gator by the tail and I pulled it out into the yard and before I did I told the cops. I said listen. There was five police officers there and I said listen.
Speaker 2:I said if that gator bites me? And they said you want us to help? And I said no. I said if that gator bites me, I don't want your help whatsoever. And I said keep your hands off your guns. So I jumped on the gator and he hissed and he thrashed around but I had him pinned down and, like a couple of them, out of instinct, kind of just rested their hand on their sidearm and I said now you see, that's what I'm talking about. I said no. I said I don't need y'all blowing me full of holes trying to help me yeah, geez, that's that's wild, yeah, you guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys lived the life. So I mean, did you learn to rope first on cattle or anything?
Speaker 2:or you were just going out after gator for learning how to rope. No, it was roping cows. That's where I originally learned to rope. And then, being on a boat, a lot, I throw dock lines at, you know, pillars and cleats and stuff like that, you know. So, yeah, I operate a lot of large boats as well from time to time, and sometimes it just makes sense to throw the rope, you know. So I just kind of taught myself when I was younger.
Speaker 1:Then I mean, with the gators, is it quite difficult to lasso them Because their head, their head's more in the water normally, isn't it? Or you just kind of wait till they stick up a bit?
Speaker 2:It all depends on the gator itself, because certain gators, gators are very they're pretty much all the same creature. They're pretty similar, but, just like people, they have different personalities. Like, I have gators that I know if I go in the enclosure I'm going to have to keep my eye on them because they are going to come crawl right up my leg if I don't watch them. And then I have gators that won't, that won't come to me at all. So, um, it's a little bit harder to rope a gator facing you.
Speaker 2:So typically what you'll do is you'll, you'll throw your loop and you'll, and you'll throw it over his head, but you don't pull your slack because he's facing you. So you'll, you'll wait till he turns, you know, either left or turns right, and he'll turn into the loop. And that's when you, that's when you get your slack and pull your slack and you're tight on them. Um, you know, you, if you rope them around the top and bottom jaw, all the way around the neck, the rope needs to be back behind the skull, on the neck, because if you have them from just behind the eyes, forward, you're on the skull and the skull slowly tapers forward. So all they have to do is thrash one time and create a little bit of slack in your line and it'll pop off. Now, if you have them roped just by the top jaw, it doesn't matter, it's behind the teeth, it won't come off.
Speaker 1:You know, once it's tight, it's tight Okay.
Speaker 2:Do you have them break the rope a lot?
Speaker 1:No, no, hardly ever. They don't bite. Yeah, they're not able to bite through it or anything.
Speaker 2:Well they're, they don't get a chance to. Well, even if they do, they can't. So a gator, an alligator, has 75 to 80 teeth in their mouth at any given time. Then they're born with those teeth. Okay, now, kind of like a shark, an alligator will regenerate teeth. So if an alligator loses teeth, they regrow their teeth for, yeah, the majority of their lives. They're going to average around to 3 000 teeth in a lifetime.
Speaker 2:But their teeth are conical, they're cone shaped, they're round and pointed. They don't have teeth designed for chewing or cutting. Okay, so I have them bite my rope all the time. It just doesn't hurt anything. You know, if a gator bit you and let you go, even though they have 2500 pounds per square inch of bite force, if a gator bit you on the arm and just opened his mouth right back up, you would have small puncture wounds and that would be it and it wouldn't even be a big deal. Yeah, the problem is when they bite you and they thrash and they tear around. Okay, that's what, that's. What's gonna hurt you is the is the thrashing around. So, yeah, that biting the rope, it doesn't hurt the rope at all. Their teeth have no serrations on them whatsoever, no sharp edges okay, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I uh, I did not know that. So the areas where you're mainly getting the gators, it's on private land and you're relocating them, uh yeah, so, yeah, so well, different, different areas for different reasons.
Speaker 2:So my most recent videos, where I've been doing a lot of the lassoing and there was a gator that I had lassoed and he was like 10 foot and I was in the pond standing behind him yes, so that specific area, someone had the property and they had gators on the property and they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing with the gators. You know, they kind of were breaking the law, so they lost access to the property. Somebody new took the property over and now the gators have to all be caught and they all have to be documented. We have to know what's there, how many are there, how big they are male or female there, how many are there, how big they are male or female. So on that piece of property there is probably. I've caught 15 off that property so far and I think we got another 15 to go 15 or 20 to go.
Speaker 1:So what's the best way to tell how many gators are there? Do you guys kind of shine a spotlight at night on the lake or the body of water or just watch the shores? I mean, is it difficult to tell how many would be there?
Speaker 2:It is difficult, but it's not difficult. So if you understand how gators think and why they do what they do, it will help you better understand. You know, maybe, how many is in a body of water. So larger male gators, or mature male gators, they're not tolerant of other male gators, okay. So if you have a small pond and you've got a gator in there that's larger than nine feet, so female gators never, never, really get bigger than nine feet. So if you have a gator that's larger than nine feet, all right, you're going to know that that's a male, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:And if there's gators there with him that are under nine feet, you're going to know typically those are going to be females because he's not going to allow those other males to hang out there very long anyway, um, so you're going to kind of get an idea. You know each female is going to lay 30 to 50 eggs. Uh, give or take a few, um, during the summertime. Um, so it depends on the time of year, like right now. I know there's a bunch of babies out there. I know three different females that have nests and they got 10 to 15 babies on each nest that are that are still alive. They haven't been eaten yet. So you kind of go through there during the day and you get a head count on mature gators, and then you go through there at night and you and you get a head count on mature gators, and then you go through there at night and you try to get a head count on juveniles and kind of put it together.
Speaker 1:So with the they lay that many eggs, how many of that would survive, make it to a mature size?
Speaker 2:So it all depends on who you ask. So a good rule of thumb is 10% make it to adulthood. So there, may excuse me, 10% make it to three foot in length, and then one or two out of all, 30 to 50 make it to adulthood. So three to five will make it to three feet in length and one or two will make it to adulthood. Some people say 10% make it to adulthood. So that female, like, like I said she'll, she'll build a nest, um, she'll lay 30 to 50 golf ball size elongated eggs in that nest, and the nest is just a mound of vegetation, mud, sticks, grass, things like that, um, and then she'll lay the 30 to 50 eggs in there and then she'll cover it up. Now she protects it, but they don't incubate it. They're cold-blooded reptiles. So the natural composting effect of the vegetation will create heat. That's what incubates the eggs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a pretty cool feature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the temperature of the nest determines if the eggs are boy, girl or a mixture of the two. Really, yep, genetics play zero role in it. There is it's around a seven. It's around a seven degree window, so 86 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit. If the nest temperature is within that and maintains you have some male, some female that are born. If the nest temperature is above 93 and maintains they're all born as male. If it's below 86 and maintains they're all born as female, oh wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1:So if someone had like an alligator farm, they could completely control whether they had male or females 100%, which we have a lot of here in Florida.
Speaker 2:We we commercially farm gators here in Florida. We don't allow commercial harvest. You know a lot of people. They see the swamp people in Louisiana, the show where they're hanging baited hooks around, yes, and then you know, they asked me about it and I just let them know. Well, they're commercially harvesting gators there. We don't do that here. Just like beef, pork or chicken, we have gators in Florida that are bred, hatched, incubated or incubated, hatched and raised in captivity for meat and skin production.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, just like a beef farm or something.
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly like that, Really cool beef farm or something, yep, exactly like that.
Speaker 1:Really cool. Speaking about the beef farms, you guys have a breed of cattle there, the Florida Cracker Cattle, and did? I thought I heard this, so did the name come from the guys, the cowboys cracking their whips around the water holes? And stuff to scare the gators out.
Speaker 2:It isn't to scare the gators, it's to drive cattle. Yeah, the cracking of the whips is to drive cattle, it's just to drive them.
Speaker 1:Okay, All right. Yeah, Do many calves or anything? Are they eaten by gators in Florida? Like would a typical rancher have to worry about that?
Speaker 2:Typically no, but they do. They will, you know. So an alligator is a scavenger, more so than a hunter, and they're a very opportunistic feeder. So the thing is, is alligators, if they were to reach a point of hunger nearing starvation, they would attempt to take a larger like a cow or something. But there's so much food source down here readily available. But I've seen it happen. You get these big ranches with calves and if a calf eases down into the water, it's nothing for a 12 or 14 foot gator to snatch one up and take off with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I suppose yeah Something that size. Do you guys have many in your area that size?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah they're. Oh yeah, that's, it's so. You know, two and a half million gators in the state of Florida give or take. You know. Obviously it's hard to do an accurate inventory on them, you know, but if you get out there and you sit quiet and you get binoculars and you just start glass and ride with me, you know and and I got, I consistently show people 12 and 13 footers on the gator sightseeing tours, um, but you know, certain times of the year the hotter it gets, the harder they are to find, because those bigger gators they'll come up and get a breath of air and then they'll go back to the bottom or they'll get off in the shade, in a swamp somewhere.
Speaker 2:Um, right now we're extremely low, our water levels are extremely low. We're on a long drought right now, so we don't have a lot of water. And then the gators are. I see them getting hit on the road every day, crossing the roads. They're just, they're going everywhere they can to look for some shade, look for some water.
Speaker 1:Gee, okay, yeah, that'd be something to hit That'd probably do a bit of damage to your vehicle.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, I've hit four or five in my life myself, and it hasn't hurt my vehicle whatsoever.
Speaker 1:So also, you do more than just you know the hog hunting and the gator lassoing, you also do. You know a lot of fishing as well, airboat rides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you also do a lot of fishing as well. Airboat rides, yeah. So basically I have my own company and I work closely with two or three other companies that are owned by friends of mine, and we do anything and everything together that you would want to do outdoors in Florida. So another major thing for us is fossils and shark teeth. So Florida is world-renowned for fossils and shark teeth, so that's a big industry for us.
Speaker 2:People come here from around the world to pan for shark's teeth and dig for fossils and you know, florida has a very rich native heritage, so a lot of people come here to look for arrowheads and things like that. Um, we, like I said, we do a little bit of everything you know. So I get people that want a freshwater fish we do that. We saltwater fish. I get people that want to come primitive camp we do that, you know. Um, I get people to come for photography tours. I get a lot, of a lot of teachers that come um, and I'll take groups of teachers out and do educational trips and we'll talk about the ecosystem, the wildlife, native species, non-native species, the impacts that each of those have on each other and on the ecosystem, you know, and then they'll take that information back to their classroom, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. What are the? The primitive camping Like? What consists of that?
Speaker 2:It all depends on how primitive you want to go. So I have a group of gentlemen that like to hog hunt with me and they like to camp we primitive camp. So what we'll do is there's a lot of our bodies of water that up to the high water mark. It's considered public land, sovereign land. You know public use land. So you can camp around the banks of a lot of our lakes here in Florida for free. So we'll take the boat and we'll take the dogs and we'll go set up a camp. And you know, if you want to go semi-primitive, we can. At the end of the day we go up to the shower house at the fish camp and you can have a hot shower. And you know we can go to a restaurant and have a hot meal. And if you want to go full primitive, we can take a bar of soap, put it in the bottom of a pantyhose, tie it to your belt loop so you don't lose it in the river and we can bathe right there in the river with the alligators.
Speaker 1:So it vastly varies in what you want to do.
Speaker 2:Absolutely it. So it vastly varies in what you want to do. Absolutely it does. That's cool yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you do a lot of airboat rides as well, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, tons of airboat rides.
Speaker 2:You know I just can't handle the workload myself on all the different boats. So two of my cousins are master captains, just like myself. My best friend's a master captain, um, and we all have the same certifications as far as airboats and stuff. So, um, you know, I I got one, my best friend, he'll do, uh, he'll do, near shore fishing. My cousin does offshore fishing, my other cousin does, um, inshore and flats fishing. You know I'll do the freshwater fishing and the airboat stuff. So we just we kind of help each other out, you know, and it's, it's um, it's a, it's a pretty good business and it's year round. You know we stay busy 52 weeks a year. Um, you know it, it could be, it could be busier. It's just hard to find, it's just hard to keep good help around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys got a lot on the go and then also you spent some time doing you said a bit with some stuff, with Carbon TV and radio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a good friend of mine. I took a woman out on a trip and it was actually a bachelorette group and they wanted to go see dolphins out in the Gulf of Mexico or in Tampa Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. So I took them out and I didn't know it, but her boyfriend at the time was into the TV and the radio so she was texting him pictures and videos and she was like, hey, I think this guy's okay, I think he would work. Uh, you know, you need to talk to him. I think y'all, y'all could work together.
Speaker 2:So when I got back to the doc, he was waiting on me. He introduced himself, um good friend of mine now, vince Noble, and um, he was like, hey, man, you know, we're doing uh like for you to come out and sit around and and, um, you know, talk to us. I was like okay, so did that with him a few times. And then he was also involved in radio and had been for a while. So I started um, taking Saturday mornings off and go to the radio station, or I would do a call in, you know, and, uh, I would talk over the talk, over the phone, you know, and we'd do a live radio deal there like that. We talk about fishing and hunting where stuff was biting, when it was biting. You know stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. So it was a local Florida radio station, was it? Yes, yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah, that's really neat. You never know who you're taking out, I guess note.
Speaker 2:I guess no, absolutely not, absolutely not. You know I've, I have, I have taken out newscasters before you know state. You know that did semi-local, you know statewide kind of radio or news, news broadcast and stuff and kind of get roped into a little bit of that. So, like you said, you never know who who you take out. You know I get a lot of, uh, sports people, um, I get a lot of different people like that that come out and go with me and stuff and baseball players and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:You know yeah, in, in general, when somebody is coming out with you for the first time, what would you recommend, whether, like, I mean it's kind of broad question but with your fishing or, you know, with the hog hunts and stuff like like what to wear, what to expect, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the first question. We'll kind of touch on a couple of different things. So the first thing, let's say we're talking about fishing, whether it's freshwater or saltwater, so something that helps me do real well and helps, you know, I retain 85% of my business as return customers and something that helps me with that is right out of the gate, I find out what you're wanting to do and what your expectations are. You know, like if you called me right now and you said, hey, man, you know I don't really want to go offshore but I want to catch grouper, and I'm going to say, hey, man, it's too hot right now. You know that water surface is real hot. Them grouper ain't way up in these, way up in these flats. I said, so, we're not going to do that, but this is some other options. So I'm going to ask you do you want to fill the freezer or you want to fish for fun? And then, whether you tell me I want to catch food, or whether you say, you know, I got to get on a plane in the morning or day after tomorrow, so I don't really want to keep anything that's going to kind of uh, help me figure out which direction to go at that point?
Speaker 2:Um, typically, when it comes to the fishing, you don't have to bring anything. You know, uh, I have a license that covers your fishing license when you're on the boat, so you just show up with whatever drinks you want for the day, whatever snacks you want for the day, um, and you and your group and we go fishing, you know, and, um, now, if it's hog hunting, it's a little different. Yes, you know, if we're, if we're, if we're dog hunting, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of funny to me. You know, I I get people that are avid hunters but they've never dog hunted for hogs, or they're from up north or out west, and they show up, you know, and they're putting war paint on their face and they're're spraying no-scent stuff all over them. I'm like no, no, no, no, no. I said you can stop all that, bud. Yeah, you can stop all that. I said this whole curdog right here is about to go put some teeth on something. You can stink as bad as you want, buddy, it ain't going to save them hogs today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not going to stink all day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I tell people, um is especially with, uh, with the airboats and stuff, um, it's very important that you follow the rules on the airboat, because airboats can be very dangerous. You know, there's no brakes, there's no reverse Um, and the biggest thing is people drop stuff and it goes through the propeller and it can destroy a propeller, which can destroy and sink a boat.
Speaker 1:Um thought of that. Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 2:Yep, so there's a, there's a lot to it, but it's really not that complicated. You know, um, it's, it's just people get out there on the airboat and 99.9% of people are just in awe of everything. They love it. They love everything about it. Um, I do get a small, small, small percentage of people that are like man, that's, that's way louder than I thought it was going to be. And, and you know, like um, I even had somebody uh left a review, not on my company, but for a friend of mine's airboat company the other day and it said you know, we were expecting a nice calm ride through the, through the Florida wilderness, but it was anything but that. You know, it's like a roller coaster and it really isn't like that. But those airboats, they, they do drift a lot Like they drift sideways, like a car would drift a corner. Um, and obviously it's an airboat, so it's loud, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, uh, how, how do you stop them? Actually, I've kind of wondered that. I just see guys kind of sort of throttle down. Is that?
Speaker 2:is that the brakes, brakes so you can have a brake put on a boat and it's basically just a metal bar in the back that when you push a separate pedal it falls into the water and it creates a little bit of drag is all it does. Yeah, um, now, on land a boat's gonna stop pretty quick, all right. In in deeper water a boat's gonna stop pretty, it will slide to a stop, you know, um, pretty quick, because the weight of the engine pulls the back of the boat down into the water. Um, shallow water is when they don't stop so quick. But the thing about it is is you just have you with an airboat.
Speaker 2:You cannot, you cannot pay attention to what's happening now. You have to pay attention to what's happening now and, even more importantly, you have to pay attention to what's happening now. You have to pay attention to what's happening now and, even more importantly, you have to pay attention to what's about to happen. You know you can't look right in front of the boat. You need to be looking everywhere at all times. You know you got to be very aware of your surroundings. You know, in our river systems they flow and the water level changes because the tidal movement, sometimes every hour, so you might come around a corner that's three feet deep right now and if you come around that same corner tomorrow, it might be three inches deep. So you know it may. The boat may slide a lot more and and stuff like that. You know, like I said, you just got to anticipate what's coming, um, and you can spin the boat around. You can 180 the boat, spin it around and give it throttle and stop it in its tracks if you want to. Honestly, a big thing that screws people up is speed. Almost a hundred percent of our airboat accidents down here, speed is a determining factor because, at the end of the day, there's no such thing as too slow on an airboat, but there is such a thing as too fast. Yeah, so, and the problem is is you have to have extra throttle to get the boats to turn and to go the direction you're turning them. So if you were to be going straight at full throttle, you can't turn the boat and get it do what you wanted to do if you don't have extra gas. You know what I mean to make it go that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we uh, actually uh, this this last sunday, um, we had a. We have wrecks all the time personal boats, mostly private boats, but we had a gentleman, a guy, die a fatality. He was driving his boat and he wrecked, fell off the boat, hit some tree logs and stuff and it killed him. But the next boat that was right there grabbed him and said, you know, they kind of sprung into action and they did what you would expect they put him on the front of the boat. One boy starts doing CPR and the other guy gets in the driver's seat and is driving him back. Well, he kind of was worried about getting him back and trying to get him to, you know, to emergency services before he died on him and he was driving too fast and he wrecked that boat. So the doing cpr oh yeah, the boy doing cpr on the guy that was already dead flew off the boat and broke his back, hit a tree and broke his back holy think it cursed boat.
Speaker 2:No, that's why yeah, it's, uh, yeah, and and it goes, and it goes, and it goes, it goes on that whole. You know the river changes and that's another. There's logs and stuff that roll down the river. The river, like I said, changes overnight. Day by day the river will change. You might be on a straightaway and it's wide open, say, and tomorrow there might be a big old cypress log or oak log that has rolled down the river and got caught on the bottom and now there's a hazard, just subsurface, that you can't see. That would bust a hole in the bottom of your boat, you know. So complacency is a big problem, man, you know, and you know it's just you get the guys that come out here and I hate to say this because I'm a guy, so I don't want to crap on my own too much, but you get guys and then you get a few cold beers and that testosterone mixed with I'll do what I want attitude. You know it's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, Justin, do you have a story of a real memorable hunt, whether it be hog or gator, that comes to mind that you'd like to tell? Let's see here.
Speaker 2:Man, I have a bunch, I have a ton of them. But, um, I'll tell you the, the very uh gator hunt that I went on, that was, that was um, second to none, um, it was just phenomenal gator hunt. And I took a boy on it from uh middle of alabama and he come down and and, uh, he said, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump on a gator and I'm gonna wrestle a gator, and obviously I won't let somebody jump a gator without having tape on its mouth. You know, um, I do that sometimes, you know. But, um, he came down and we got a gator caught, we got a gator killed and and he was talking all tough and everything, and I said, uh, I said, all right, now, now get over it. I said, straddle that gator. I said, put your legs on each side of my set and I want you to, you know, grab his head and pick his head up for a picture.
Speaker 2:And my, my friend, uh, the other captain, he was on the back of the boat. Well, that boy put his feet on each side of the gator and I picked that gator's tail up and shook it real quick and he dove out of the boat Head first, dove right into the water. Yep, dove right into the water, so that was a pretty funny time right there. You know, I've just man, I've had a lot of really, really fun experiences over the year. You know. I've been real fortunate, um, and I've met a lot of really cool people in my life, you know, and um, so, yeah, I could talk for days about cool hunting stories, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it sounds like you. Uh, yeah, you definitely, you definitely live each day to the fullest and have a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Love it. Love everything about it.
Speaker 1:Justin, it's been great talking to you. Why don't you say, like your, your outfitting business that you have?
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 2:So my personal website is a wet and salty adventures and wet and saltycom W E T, dash N, dash S a l t y dot com, and that's my personal website.
Speaker 2:And I'm on all the main social media platforms tiktok and facebook and facebook business and and all that kind of cool stuff. And you know, and even like I tell people, even if you're not interested in hunting or fishing with me, if I can help you out, call or call or message me, email, text me anytime day or night, I answer the phone and and, um, if I can help you out or call or message me, email, text me any time day or night, I answer the phone and if I can help you out or point you in any right direction, you know I do that for a lot of people. They come to Florida and they didn't budget in for a fishing trip, so I'll tell them where they can go for free or you know kind of what to do and where to go. You know, the biggest thing for me is I want to expose people, especially young people, to the outdoors and to the wildlife. You know hunting and fishing, and that way we can continue forth with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, exactly, justin. I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. You've been a lot of fun and interesting to listen to. I really appreciate it and hope a lot of people go out and check out Red Sight and if they're in Florida they hit you up. Is there any chance you're going to be in Florida at the end of this year? It's not in plans currently, but you never know.
Speaker 2:Well, I have a gator tag with your name on it, yeah sounds good.
Speaker 1:I'll see what's going on.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll send you some dates. Man, it was a pleasure talking to y'all fellas, I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks again.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, appreciate it as well.