Catch and Release

As some of you who are close to me know, my brother is in the Army and is stationed in Texas. For the last year, he was in Iraq, but he returned safely in early May. Thank God!! He got a month long leave at the end of May and came to Ohio for a week with Dad and then drove to Florida with Dad to stay with my parents for the rest of his leave and to relax. To him, part of relaxing is doing a bit of fishing....

My parents live on the Gulf side of Florida and have a canal in their back yard.

Do you see where this is going?

Matt decided that he would fish in the canal. Off he goes to get a fishing pole and bait and he starts casting out into the canal.

When he got a tug on his line, I am not sure what was going through his mind - "Woo hoo! I caught one"? "This is a big sucker"? - Either way, he reeled it in...





Still can't tell what this is? Here... I zoomed in and enlarged the 'catch' a little so that you can see it better!

See the eye in the middle but to the upper right a bit?



See the teeth and the scales on this one?

From time to time, my parents have seen a large alligator in the canal. Well, they really just saw large alligator eyes, but they knew that they were out there. They have always been really careful about leaving their little doxies outside unattended.

After Matt reeled this guy in, they saw that he was hooked in one of his feet. Matt wanted to cut the line and let him go once he saw what it was, but Dad insisted they take the hook out. I think he was worried about some retaliation later in the gator's life.

Mom got Dad some gloves to put on and Dad picked him up to get the hook out. I guess they only had one pair of gloves, so it was up to Dad to do the dirty work. He kept holding the gator towards my brother to get him to help, but Matt was a little hesitant to have anything to do with the 'business' end of the gator. Mom said it was quite a spectacle watching Dad gesture to Matt with the gator and Matt back away from the teeth. Of course, the whole time, she is watching the water to make sure that the momma gator is heading to land to protect the baby!

Finally... A successful release back to the 'wild!' Too bad Dad was wearing his Crocs... What a faux pas!!!



Maisy says...

"Don't feed me to the gators!!"