FMF DOC
10-01-2009, 08:50
Not really Fur.. but thought this would be ok to post here...
11:45 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 30, 2009
By Cindy Horswell / Houston Chronicle
GOODRICH, Texas -- There are hunters who go a lifetime dreaming of that big kill. Then there’s Simon Hughes, who helped nab a beast of an animal on an East Texas hunt — while still in the first grade.
The 5-year-old boy from Goodrich was part of a hunting crew that recently killed an 800-pound 12-foot long alligator that’s making wildlife experts shake their heads.
Photo courtesy of the Houston Chronicle
The reptilian creature, whose size is at a state record level, is now at the taxidermist waiting to be mounted. Simon’s family, meanwhile, is fielding calls from CNN and Good Morning America to feature his exploits.
Simon learned to drive all-terrain vehicles and shoot firearms when he was only 4. So he was primed and ready to go on an alligator hunt this past weekend with his father, Scott Hughes, a sixth-generation rancher, and hunting guide Chuck Cotton. Simon had a new junior-sized .410 shotgun. His first gun had been too big, leaving a small cut below his eye after the recoil.
Neither his father nor mother worry about him using guns, because he has been taught gun safety since he was big enough to walk and stand in a deer blind.
“That’s the way it is in rural areas,” Scott said. “We don’t think of guns as playthings or something used in video games.”
By the time of the alligator hunt, Simon could shoot clay pigeons. Polk County Sheriff Kenneth Hammack, a former Texas Ranger, has been bird hunting with Simon and said he shoots pretty good for his age.
“Of course, you always keep an eye on children. But he’s learned a lot from this father,” Hammack said.
Scott had obtained a state permit to kill two of the 40 alligators populating his 5,000-acre spread near Lake Livingston because he knew something “real big was out there” and driving small alligators from the swampy areas and into his stock ponds.
State law requires alligators be caught on a baited hook or shot with a bow and arrow. So they baited a hook on Saturday with some “smelly armadillo road kill,” which apparently alligators adore.
When they returned the next day, the line was taut. Something had been snared and was resting beneath the dark 4-foot-deep waters.
They soon discovered the catch was an alligator. They attached it to an all-terrain vehicle with a sturdy line, but the gator proved so strong it almost dragged their vehicle into the water.
Finally, the animal, after thrashing and rolling, surfaced a second time, and Simon, poised 5 feet away, fired the first and what proved to be fatal shot. Cotton, just to be sure, fired one more shot at the alligator that had managed to rip the hook out of his own mouth.
Simon said he screamed “holy moly” when he saw the catch of the day. “I was never afraid for a second,” he said of the gator that is 20 times his size.
Taxidermist Stephen Moye said the head of the 12-foot, 6-inch long reptile weighs 104 pounds by itself.
A state wildlife biologist estimated the gator’s weight at more than 800 pounds. Finding an alligator of such size is rare, state officials said. Although the record length for a Texas alligator is 1 foot and 8 inches longer, the record weight for an gator killed on state property is only 690 pounds, records showed.
Simon, meanwhile, has shown pictures of the gator to his classmates in Goodrich near Lake Livingston, but that won’t be nearly as impressive as when he can bring the mounted head to show-and-tell displaying its ferocious 12-inch bite.
“My friends were proud of me, and I was proud of myself,” he said, of the photos of him being dwarfed by the gator lying by his feet. “It’s humongous!”
This story has been brought to through our partnership with the Houston Chronicle: www.Chron.com
11:45 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 30, 2009
By Cindy Horswell / Houston Chronicle
GOODRICH, Texas -- There are hunters who go a lifetime dreaming of that big kill. Then there’s Simon Hughes, who helped nab a beast of an animal on an East Texas hunt — while still in the first grade.
The 5-year-old boy from Goodrich was part of a hunting crew that recently killed an 800-pound 12-foot long alligator that’s making wildlife experts shake their heads.
Photo courtesy of the Houston Chronicle
The reptilian creature, whose size is at a state record level, is now at the taxidermist waiting to be mounted. Simon’s family, meanwhile, is fielding calls from CNN and Good Morning America to feature his exploits.
Simon learned to drive all-terrain vehicles and shoot firearms when he was only 4. So he was primed and ready to go on an alligator hunt this past weekend with his father, Scott Hughes, a sixth-generation rancher, and hunting guide Chuck Cotton. Simon had a new junior-sized .410 shotgun. His first gun had been too big, leaving a small cut below his eye after the recoil.
Neither his father nor mother worry about him using guns, because he has been taught gun safety since he was big enough to walk and stand in a deer blind.
“That’s the way it is in rural areas,” Scott said. “We don’t think of guns as playthings or something used in video games.”
By the time of the alligator hunt, Simon could shoot clay pigeons. Polk County Sheriff Kenneth Hammack, a former Texas Ranger, has been bird hunting with Simon and said he shoots pretty good for his age.
“Of course, you always keep an eye on children. But he’s learned a lot from this father,” Hammack said.
Scott had obtained a state permit to kill two of the 40 alligators populating his 5,000-acre spread near Lake Livingston because he knew something “real big was out there” and driving small alligators from the swampy areas and into his stock ponds.
State law requires alligators be caught on a baited hook or shot with a bow and arrow. So they baited a hook on Saturday with some “smelly armadillo road kill,” which apparently alligators adore.
When they returned the next day, the line was taut. Something had been snared and was resting beneath the dark 4-foot-deep waters.
They soon discovered the catch was an alligator. They attached it to an all-terrain vehicle with a sturdy line, but the gator proved so strong it almost dragged their vehicle into the water.
Finally, the animal, after thrashing and rolling, surfaced a second time, and Simon, poised 5 feet away, fired the first and what proved to be fatal shot. Cotton, just to be sure, fired one more shot at the alligator that had managed to rip the hook out of his own mouth.
Simon said he screamed “holy moly” when he saw the catch of the day. “I was never afraid for a second,” he said of the gator that is 20 times his size.
Taxidermist Stephen Moye said the head of the 12-foot, 6-inch long reptile weighs 104 pounds by itself.
A state wildlife biologist estimated the gator’s weight at more than 800 pounds. Finding an alligator of such size is rare, state officials said. Although the record length for a Texas alligator is 1 foot and 8 inches longer, the record weight for an gator killed on state property is only 690 pounds, records showed.
Simon, meanwhile, has shown pictures of the gator to his classmates in Goodrich near Lake Livingston, but that won’t be nearly as impressive as when he can bring the mounted head to show-and-tell displaying its ferocious 12-inch bite.
“My friends were proud of me, and I was proud of myself,” he said, of the photos of him being dwarfed by the gator lying by his feet. “It’s humongous!”
This story has been brought to through our partnership with the Houston Chronicle: www.Chron.com