6.2.25 INLAND

Name of Captain; John Grieder
Where were you fishing? OTHER
Is this a tournament entry Fishing Report; No
The date you went fishing; 06-02-2025
Your Name; John Grieder
Your Fishing Report: If this is a tournament report do not state the fish’s length in this box. State the length and species in the box below Close encounters of the alligator kind.

After doing a little yard work, I thought I’d take a quick break and see if the fish were biting in the pond behind my house.

While trying my luck with a jitterbug (a topwater lure) I attracted the attention of a good sized (6 foot) alligator who approached stealthily and came to a stop to check out what was causing the disturbance on the surface in front of him.  Since he was giving me the hairy eyeball I moved down along the bank of the pond, which, since there hadn’t been a lot of rain, was about a foot or two below normal with somewhat of a small flat area that tapered back to the water.  I wasn’t having much luck with the jitterbug so I had switched up to a gold minnow crankbait.

Right about then I called to my wife, who was sitting out on the lanai, to tell her Mr. Alligator was watching me.  She came to the edge of the lanai and as I was reeling in the minnow I said, “Now watch this, I’ll probably get a bite right now.”

And sure enough I did!  And he was a good sized one, too!  So I’m reeling this nice largemouth bass in and, of course, Mr. A sees his lunch being snatched away from him and makes a mad reptilian dash for it.  As I’m hustling backwards dragging the flopping fish along behind me, this alligator is making a charge for his meal and actually came out of the water in a flash.  But he thankfully stopped short of coming up on the grass as there was about a two foot embankment he would have had to climb since the pond was so low.

My wife was trying to get the action on her phone but only succeeded with a short video of the alligator being pissed off after I had told the fish to beware of his presence in the future
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No time to post the pic – still cleaning out my shorts.