Today's alligators, made brazen by food handouts from humans, would like nothing better than to turn a couple of anglers into entrees.
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published May 17, 2004
[Times photo: Jeff Klinkenberg]
On a perfect spring day’s fishing expedition, Peter Klinkenberg is hoping to hook some bass in the Myakka River, but a predator, right, may have a different idea about its place on the food chain.
SARASOTA - My son and I like to fly-fish for bass in the Myakka River in the spring. After months of little rain, the river drops and the bass become aggressive and easier to catch. Walking along the banks, we cast our popping bugs at lily pads and logs. If a hungry bass is lurking beneath, more than likely we can have fried fish for supper.
Florida wakes up in the spring. Bald eagle fledglings test their wings as lemon-scented magnolia blossoms perfume the world on breezeless evenings. My son and I appreciate all of those things. But it is also something special to feel a bass pulling at the end of your line. For a moment you are connected to something wild and beautiful in a way unavailable to most folks.
In the spring, the wise human predator at Myakka never forgets the lessons of Darwin, that everything on this planet boils down to the survival of the fittest: mainly, who eats whom? For all our fancy equipment and our superior brains, we two-legged critters are the smaller fish in a much larger pond.
"What's that on the bottom?" my son asks, pointing his fly rod in Myakka River State Park near Sarasota. We see something in the murk, something that looks like a great big moss-covered rock. In the spring, we pay attention to rocks that move.
The 12-foot alligator surfaces less than a dozen feet from my adult son. Has it been stalking him? He just returned from the Middle East and doesn't scare easily, but he automatically steps back. I am 30 feet away, but I retreat, too. Spring is the season for bass and frogs, birds and butterflies, but it mostly belongs to alligators.
I have lived in Florida more than half a century and have seen thousands of alligators. Never have I seen them as aggressive as now.
On the tidbit trail
When we were kids, my brother and I spent hours bass fishing in the Everglades. We fished exactly the way my son and I fish now. We encountered alligators all the time, but they behaved differently. They acted scared.
Hiking along a marsh, stepping carefully through the cattails, my brother and I would suddenly hear what sounded like a piano crashing into the water. An alligator had heard us coming and decided to scram.
Years ago they seemed instinctively afraid of humans. In many places now, places frequented by crowds of people, alligators no longer act afraid. They seem as accustomed to us as we are to them. That's not a good thing, I fear, for either species. Even more terrifying, incredibly stupid people, who get an illegal thrill out of feeding alligators, put the rest of us in additional danger.
It is one thing to feed a squirrel. It is another kettle of fish to feed a modern dinosaur that has lost its natural fear of us. Alligators have a brain the size of a lima bean, but once they are fed they forever associate us with food. It makes me wonder which creature is the more intelligent. In fact, I am painfully aware that the folks who should be reading this screed about alligators the most, won't read it or won't understand it if they do.
At state parks such as Myakka, of course, there are no shortages of informational signs warning people about the dangers of feeding alligators. If the chance of being devoured by a wild animal is too abstract to be frightening, there is also the possibility of a $500 fine and two months in jail.
But a good many people seem to feed alligators anyway. Spend any time around alligators and you'll witness it with your own eyes or see the evidence: chummy alligators. If parks don't do more enforcement and education, expect more unpleasant encounters between gators and people in the future. There are about a million alligators in Florida now, about one for every 15 of us.
The predatory pounce
As we hunt for bass at Myakka, my son gives Godzilla and two other alligators a wide berth. But not as wide a berth as I do. Crossing the bridge, I fish on the opposite side of the river. Even so I am as nervous as a cattle egret, half expecting a big alligator to explode out of the water and take me.
It happened last month on Sanibel Island, another place where people are up to their elbows in alligators. As 74-year-old Jane Keefer worked in her garden at water's edge, a 9-foot, 7-inch gator lunged up and bit her leg. She fought the predator off, but on its second charge it dragged her into a canal. Her husband heard the commotion and hauled his wife out of its jaws. State agents caught and killed the alligator. Jane Keefer is on the mend.
If I lived on Sanibel, I would be especially cautious near water's edge. In 2001, an 11-foot alligator lunged out of a canal and removed the leg of an 81-year-old hiker. Robert Steele died moments later of cardiac arrest.
At Myakka, even on the gatorless side of the river, I find it hard to concentrate on my casting. I credit Darwin. When I hear moving water - a slight gurgle - I look up.
The 12-foot alligator, the one that surfaced near my son, is now heading my way.
Time to find another spot.
Danger lurks in the water
Swimming is not allowed at Myakka. However, there is no rule against wading. Anglers wade in Myakka's lakes, casting for bass while being followed by alligators. Nobody has ever been attacked by an alligator at the park, so maybe that tells you the threat of an attack is exaggerated. But you won't catch me in the water.
"How much money would I have to pay you for you to swim across here?" my son asks at another spot on the river. Two big alligators lie on a sandbar; their companions include a flock of vultures. Another three cruise past like aircraft carriers. Not enough money in the world.
I don't feel comfortable swimming in Florida rivers, lakes or ponds anymore. I will take a dip in a spring because the water is clear and you can see what's coming, though even swimming in a spring can be dangerous if you are careless. In 1987, an FSU student slipped out of the swimming area at Wakulla Springs State Park near Tallahassee and decided to do some snorkeling down river. A while later he was discovered between the jaws of a 12-foot alligator.
We hear a rumbling. Alligators are talking to each other. In the spring, male alligators try out pickup lines on female alligators. Amorous bull gators spend days and nights looking for girlfriends. If another male shows up, they will fight to the death. Beware of alligators with too much testosterone. It makes them cranky and even more aggressive.
At the spillway that separates the river from Upper Myakka Lake I am all eyes and ears. The spillway is a good place for bass, but for alligators also. They lurk on the bank and just below the feet of a pair of teenagers fishing from the spillway. I ask the teens - their flip-flops dangle dangerously close to a 9-foot alligator in my opinion - if they are a least bit concerned.
"Gators won't bother you none," says the rocket scientist of the two.
On the spillway at Myakka, some anglers like to clean their catch. It's common to see anglers throwing fish guts and fish heads into the river on a spring day. It is possible that some people don't know they are feeding alligators. It is also possible that the folks I often see throwing lunch leftovers to ducks don't know they are chumming for alligators. If you hate ducks, feed them. A flock on the trail of bread crumbs is a dinner bell to an alligator.
Late in the afternoon, my son and I drive to Clay Gully Creek, which flows into Upper Myakka Lake. It is a narrow creek, but deep, with a high bank that gives me the illusion of safety. The fishing is tricky because of all the tree roots and branches and tall grass you have to walk through to get to the bank. My son is more limber than his dad and shoehorns his body into a good spot. He quickly catches, and releases, a chunky little bass.
I see a fishy-looking spot near a sunken log and tall grass. Leaning precariously over the bank, I flip my lure almost into the jaws of a waiting bass. Maybe because I am a little nervous, I instantly yank the lure away from the striking fish and into the overhanging branch of an oak. I hate losing a lure; they cost good money.
For a moment I consider climbing out on the branch to get my lure back. Then I hear a big splash. An 8-foot alligator just slid off a sandbar on the far side of the Clay Gull Creek.
