Friday night we drove out from New Orleans and headed about an hour south. It was very similar to True Detective, driving through swamp towns at night, and the last leg along dirt roads along miles of swamp. Showed up at a small lodge on stilts on a bayou river, and didn't know what to expect.
Soon enough two young guides showed up, accents as thick as you see on swamp people on TV. We piled onto a sweet 24 foot airboat that had LED lights mounted around the entire outside of the hull. We were soon heading 40 mph into the swamps, in the dark, which was awesome.
At our first stop we got a quick lesson on the bows, and then it was showtime. We stayed out from about 9:30 - 1:30 in the morning, and it wasn't easy, but was sweet. We caught a bunch of alligator gars and a few redfish. There were baitfish, mullet, and even alligators all over the place, and you would slowly cruise up along the banks of the marsh, look for a gar or redfish cruising by and unleash.
At one point we were cruising about 10 feet off the bank and the bushes moved and a 5 foot alligator came out of the reeds at full speed, dove into the water and came straight at us and then last second went under the boat. Was a pretty small one, but was still pretty cool to see it trying to attack the boat.
Overall, once in a lifetime experience and may need a trip back when hog hunting is on (smaller airboats and AR-15s - how sweet would that be.
Anyway, more details to come on the Headhunt, but we are keeping things simple - only doing a couple of the corporate sponsors we had last year - Quantum and Stormr, from Goose Hummock. More to come on that, but can't thank them enough.
Let's get the registrations in and the trash talk cooking. It's getting closer.