Tracking a killer gator in 73,000 acres of wild Florida

We've just touched down in America where things seem to be bigger and 1000 miles an hour. We've managed to commandeer this swamp buggy. We're gonna be hunting hogs, apparently. We're gonna be haunted hogs. We're gonna be chasing Gators. We're gonna get the full American experience this. Is crazy. Oh. Oh my gosh. Hey, look out, I got a gun. Yeah, we're here with Rob and his family from Deer Meat for dinner and I have no idea what we're in for, but it pumped. It's gonna be a wild. Ride. Hang on. I don't know who let us on the swan. Fucking let's do it. A few moments later, this truck. It's a diesel, that's gas. We've filled the tank up with gas. Not we I've. Filled the tank up and I feel like America's biggest idiot in this very moment. At this point, I'm just hoping I don't get fed to the Gators this afternoon, no. I'm sure you'll work that turn, turn hard lap. All right, so. Basically the. Setup is now we've got one of Rob's buddies is coming down with the trailer and he's doing us a huge. Solid SO. Thank you. And you see this, brother? I guess the least I can do after all of that. Is pay for the. Fuel One thing that has made this trip so much easier financially has been Revolute. Revolut is an app that comes complete with an international spending card that has made things like tracking our spending, changing currencies, making payments quick and easy on the go, low to no ATM fees so. Simple and so. Fast. It's been a game changer for us here in the United States. Plus they make great quality cards. This is made of metal which. Very much suits. Getting back to basics because quite often. We're in boats. We're getting caught in the rain, we're off road, and things generally don't last too long. Right now you can get a Revolute card just like. This with $30 to. Spend on. Whatever you'd like. All. You need to. Do is sign up right here in this? QR code or? There's a link in the description. Super quick, super simple. And you get yourself a metal card with 30 bucks to spend. Revolute's not only we've been super handy and practical for this trip in America, but so many other different countries. 100 countries you can use. Revolute, we've been fortunate. To travel to a lot of different countries, filming Indonesia, Vanuatu, Papa New Guinea, Samoa, the Bahamas next week and now here in the United States and. So it's really. Important for us to have a financial app that is going to be safe, simple, effective and make all these different payments super easy. Revolute has honestly made our travel experience and payments. It's so much easier and smoother. And right now you can sign up and get $30 to spend on whatever you'd like one of these awesome cards. Just click the link in the description or this QR. Code right here. Let's get. Back into it. So right now they're just running down the road smelling if a hog Cross Road. If they book it in the road left right then then we know. Then we run off from. Well, we'll just wait. Until and you'd see hogs and everything running through here. Yeah, you're. Going to see hogs all over here. Hogs, deer, turkeys, everything. There he is. I'm sweet home for the next couple of days. This is one of those moments where you're extremely excited, largely because you don't know what you're in for. So we're just. Relaxing here. At the camp and the girls called out that there was a tortoise. Actually up near the. Camp probably like. 5060 meters. Away from the water, supposedly this one's incredibly rare. It's called a, a, a Gopher tortoise. I used the Florida accent there. I was just going to thank you. Sound A. Mirror. Otherwise it would have been Gopher tortoise here. We've let it go next to the water and sometimes they like to be on the land and other times they'll go off there into the the water. But he must know that there's a few gaiters in there. He's heading up the higher ground. That's a really. Cool looking animal. Has some really amazing patterns on the back of its shell. There's this beautiful Little River that runs in here and I think we're about to jump in the boat. I'm pretty excited for this one. A good luck. Fishing a Skittle. Oh yeah, I need all the luck I can get. Thank you very much. Get 10. That's extra. Good luck, all right? Good hogs got Gators got Skittles. What's the plan now? We're going to run and check out Lake Crescent, so in a little bit I have Gator tags for this area, so I want to go do some scouting and figure out exactly what I'm looking at. When the water level changes, the edges change, and we just got to figure out what's going on. Try to come up with a game plan. This is. Awesome. We are flying up this river. There's deep enough water in the middle that we can get on the plane. It's almost like a joyride. A lot of this vegetation. I haven't seen stuff like this before. This is this is adrenaline fly. That's here. Hang on, hang on. I hope you guys are. Holding on, Holding on with. My feet. How does it look up top mate? Or mate, it's just big, big forest. Big Bush right on the edge. Of this river and the boat is just absolutely. Flying and then it'll like come in a vision, come out of vision, go under canopies and hooking around some pretty sharp corners, so. Yeah, hopefully the footage turns out. And I'm I'm flying this drone. Right, because it's all over the place. We haven't spent much time around the American Gator, but if we were in Australia, this is a prime habitat for the saltwater crocodile. We assume they like a pretty similar habitat. Any of these banks, we'd imagine to see one up sunning himself, this kind of darky coloured water. This is where they'd love to be camouflaged in, well, tortoise there. Yeah. Yeah, He was a bit slow getting off his log. The wildlife we're seeing so far is pretty spectacular. There's birds flying around, turtles outstanding himself on log. No Gators yet though. We've come to realize our American mates, they don't do anything at half speed. Everything is flat out million miles an hour. In this moment, it really hit us, a new environment in a new country with new mates, up a river in the middle of Florida, we're soon realizing. It was just so much to explore here. And we're really going to try and do as much as we can over the next few days here after checking out a bit more of this ecosystem. It's time to go hunting, y'all. It's happened to rug. So our motor is overheating. There's so much of this duck weed and vegetation on the surface. I've got to get in and clean up the intake. Is this the? Sort of the same area we Gator hunt inmate or. Yeah. There's a lot of them in this area. Just get. Check out this thing. They don't do anything in halves here in the in the US. We're starting to find out and I think the plan is the whole family, friends, everyone's going to pile on here this kind of. Off road, off. Terrain all terrain vehicle will allow us to get through some of the the mushy swamps areas and this is what we're going to be on looking for the wildlife pretty cool hey and we've. Just jumped on this Mad Max type machine. Just going into the Bush to see if we can find some. Hogs, yeah. The property owners actually asked us if we do see any like do our our best to to take them out. They cause all sorts of damage to the the local native flora and fauna. What? We're going to do is the wind's coming like this, we're going to turn and drive down this road and make a big huge loop, like a two mile loop through the woods. And I'm going to watch my dog until he like when he acts up that yellow dog right there, Then I'll let him out and hopefully we can catch a hog close to us. But when when the hogs strike or when the dogs strike, we've got to get there quick. Look how keen these dogs are they? They know what's happening right now. They've done this before. So we're just. Trailing behind the. Buggy up the front here the game. Plan is if those dogs get a scent and jump off. We're on. We're getting on the foot, Falcon, and we're after. It Rob's really keen to run 1 down. You ready yet? We've. Got no choice. We've got to be ready, he just said. The dogs grab the pig, you grab the pig as well. So that's the game plan. No brief straight in let. It. Go. Let it go, let it go, it's. About. To happen. Right now they're off. They're off. They're off. Get it. Go. Come on. Yeah, yeah. All right, it's all happened pretty quick this afternoon. We've been walking through this pretty thick scrub for about half an hour and just thinking how special it is to have these kids here with us so keen for the adventure and from such a young age. Like learning about where their food comes from, hunting the Bush, getting their hands dirty. They're walking through spiders, spiders nest and all. Just super keen to be out here hunting with with their dad, with their family. Step on that big stuff, okay? It makes a lot of noise. Hey, you're gay. Watch those stuff. So Prime is brought apparently. Keeping it real. Quiet now. Keep us, you might be getting closer. So we jumped the hog and right now they're just running it. They're really close, really close to the hog now. Watch when it refreshes. He's going to be closer. Watch this. So right now, Maverick. Listen, listen, there he is. How do we go on the hunt, guys? Didn't see any hogs, eh? Well, we saw a piece of hog fur. Yeah. Oh, there we go. We're on. The. Watch out, he's right there. With a herd or or spotted a pig in camp, dogs run off. He's a snake. Here. There's a snake. In the hole here. What? He almost stood on it. There's a. Snake. Here we're running after a pig. He's almost. Stood on a. Snake. It's a a cock mouth water moccasin. That's a very venomous snake right there. What type of snake is he man? That's a cottonmouth water moccasin. It's got a neurotoxin. This is known for killing a lot of dogs right here, OK? OK, here you go. Well done mate. Watch it. Watch it. Come on man. Come on, camera boy, she'll be. She'll be right here. The dogs took off, but that pig had a a fair bit of a head start and it's pretty thick country here, like thick swampy jungle. Type country. Here in the South and the big hog outsmarted the dogs. We're going to keep pushing on, see what else we can find quickly. Let's go, go, go, go. Go, go, I can hear. Let's go, go, go. Come on guys. Good. Job mate, we've made it all the way here. Over to. America with Rob. From. Dear meat for dinner, brother, What an evening man. This is special. So it's. All about new. Experiences for us, we've never done this before. But jeez. They're good for the United. States. Oh man. That's a perfect hog, man. That's a perfect hog. I was wondering what we're going to have for dinner, Backstrop. Oh yeah. Thanks bud. Good chase guys, high five guys. That was teamwork all around there. High five? Well. Done even though. I'm about. To pass out. Yeah, I. Was running that. Way you were running so. Fast, weren't you? Well done bro, Well done. He's going. To shine my. Hat I'm blind. Mission success. Well done. Literally finished hunting. She's got a teddy bear with her. Just spotted herd of these wild dogs. We're going to sneak up on them on one of these State of the Arboretus, thermal scoping, a silencer on the end of a tripod. We're going to sneak up through this long grass and see if we can go on. What happened? Oh, we're on the edge of a, a paddock where there's quite a lot of cattle grazing. And as we came in, the cattle were quite close to us and they call went to us and spooked and with that moved on that herd of pigs. So that light downed off into the scrub. So we're going to have to either come around on another angle or we'll find another mob that's on. We're going to keep. Moving, we jump back in and see if we can find. Another mob of pigs. Oh, you got them? Yeah. Night. Night What? Have. You got there? Oh, we just got a little sow It's. Perfect eating hall. Yeah, it's a really good eating size. Yeah. These are actually like an introduced species. They're feral. They cause a lot of damage to the native environment. So we are doing a native. Environment a favour, but also ourselves, because this is, as Rob was saying, a perfect eating size. Like when they're going out to harvest meat for their friends and family, this is the sort of animal that they're looking for. You got a racket now? It's loaded here. Just take the lights out of my eyes. Whoa. All right, I honestly can't make this up right now. As we're heading back to the camp, just a couple of big boars ran out in front of us. We just chased it down with the spotlight out into. This open field big ditch. Went into the ditch, got away. Hey, Danny. Hold on, Dad. Oh, Oh my gosh, shut up. Hey, look out, I got a gun. Almost crashed the buggy. Dan. Almost went over the front. It was fantastic. We're out of gas, we're out of bullets and supposedly there's not only Gators, deer, wild hogs that are big enough to take a chunk out of. Your leg but. There's also bears. I'll tell you what. I'm having a great time. So. It's been decided. That the pigs are both going to be used for. Bait and also. Taking the back straps off them for food. Through all the way. There you go, a few wild hog back straps. We got woke up this morning by the head rancher at camp and he said guys if you can today I'd really like you to help me remove. A couple of problem Gators. And he said that they've been taking the ranchers dogs that they're using to herd up the cows, all all their working dogs, their pets, their mates. Plus they're also grabbing the calves of the cows. Yeah. So we said there's a there's a couple in particular, one in a pond in a water source that the cows come and use to feed from and also the dogs drink out of and a couple of other areas that have really aggressive Gators. So I'm really going to try to go out this morning. Let's see if we can get one of these. Gators Pretty incredible to see like this this very small. Pool of water. Has a big Gator in it. So what do you reckon mate? We haven't seen him yet. But. This one apparently is just. Very, very shy. Very smart. So we're just keeping it quiet, trying to get eyes on him, and then we'll get a game plan. Yeah, apparently it's really shy, unless you're a calf or a dog that it bites you on the nose and eats you. Rob's just up here with the binos, having a look to see if he can get a. Visual or any movement. On the water and we've deliberately walked into the wind so that the sound and our smell doesn't alert this Gator. Rob's gone over to get a closer look, but we can't see anything. That's not to say there's not an alligator in there. They can actually hold their breath for like 2 to 8 hours depending on if they're resting and the temperature of the water. So in colder water, because they're cold blooded, they can lay on the bottom for 8 hours without taking a breath, which is crazy, but there's a few things that can attract them. Splashing in the water or making a bit of commotion gets them curious, so I'm not sure what the tactics going to be now, but we'll see what Rob reckons. What's your thoughts, Rob? People think the Gators just live in a pond. Gators move constantly and right now it's called the crawling season. So the Gator that was in this pond with all this wind probably crawled out, got in a ditch and went and found somewhere more secluded. So when you find them, you got to take them out. Otherwise you'll regret it. We'll go down here to the bull pasture then and. And walk through the woods and. Get that one. We've got to be really quiet, you. Can see the. Dirt so. If. You want to slip too bad in here or whatever. This is the problem that we're trying to fix. The Gators have been smashing the cattle here. It's like a graveyard. Bones everywhere here. I think there's a big Gator down here. There's like a trail of bones from up here leading down to the water's edge. Look at this. This is the cow poo. Obviously this is where they come down on the really hot days to try and get a bit of a drink down here and obviously the Gators are aware of that and just sit there waiting for them. Massive problem. I'm doing nails. Another one. His balls don't realize how much danger they're in. We've got to act pretty quick here. So we're on. Let's set up the rifle. We're going to see if we can get a good shot on him. He's on to us. We've got to be really quiet. He can go down like an hour and a half, so he goes down. It's got to be real normal. It's starting to rain trying to make the shot, but you can see there's a head in the in the crossers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, How far down? Maybe maybe an inch down, but maybe that far down, yeah. Perfect. See him waving? That's a perfect shot. Thanks mate. Perfect shot. Come here. Come on. Get him out, mate. Get him by the top. Get him by the top mate. Up under his head, there's a little. Bit of lock in him mate. Pull him out. Perfect shot. Shot man. Jeez guys. This is a really, really big Gator. We'll take him, put him in the cooler, get him cooled down, take him back to my house, skin them out and utilize this to its fullest extent. I'd rather eat this knowing where it's come from and how we've killed it than something wrapped in plastic in a store every day. Every day, all day, that's what we do. That's what we do. Very grateful. A good time. What we're going to do is touch his eye. Yeah, that's a good one. Impressive animal. Thanks mate. Thank you. So even though this is a private ranch, this is 73,000 acres of wild Florida, they get issued tags by the state of Florida. And as soon as you kill the Gator, you've got to tag it, which means, hey, it's now legal. This is a CITES tag. And see how the Gator is 100% dead. But until he gets really cold, his nerves will still do that. That's why it's very important not to get your hand inside their mouth. 9696, Yeah, right. Good. Cool. But he would have been it 10/2. He gather about. 8 inches of tail. Yeah, yeah. It's a 10 foot Gator right there buddy. Yeah. Full on. This here, Skeeter Country, we'll be right back. All right. Skeeter and Gator country. It's a pretty surreal experience to come out here to America and hunt a Gator, a problem Gator and aggressive Gator and 1:00 that's going to be shared with family and friends. Data catch and cook. Chances are that Big Gator is responsible for this. And we saw all those cattle coming down for a drink. They just didn't know the risk that they were at. This Gator would just be sitting in there whenever he's hungry for a feed, all he's got to do is grab on the nose, bring him underwater, they drown and then and then this is what happened. So. Don't worry, we got it.