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Former Stephensville Elementary School student and “Swamp People” cast member Duggie Acosta shows off an 11-foot, 8-inch alligator he caught recently. He brought the alligator to the Stephensville Elementary School to show the students.
(Submitted Photo courtesy of Linda Cooke)

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Raymond Rink Sr. and his grandson, Jacob Rink, work to fill this season’s alligator tags.
Submitted Photo/Jennifer Rink

Gator season

By JEAN L. McCORKLE jmccorkle@daily-review.com

With the alligator hunting season edging toward a close, most hunters have filled their tags for the season, and wildlife officials report no citations in this region.
Sidney “Peanut” Michel, of Morgan City, said he is finishing up with the last of his nearly 300 tags.
Michel said the season has been very good, with the average size of alligators better than it has been in the past couple of years. He fishes three different leases from Lake Palourde to the mouth of the Atchafalaya River, he said.
Alligators are “still as plentiful as in years past,” Michel said.
His catch is brought to Johnny’s Seafood, where owner Pat Templet said the season started a little slow because of the rain but has been going well since.
“They’ve had some nice alligators that’s been brought in,” Templet said.
The biggest alligator she’s seen this season was 11-feet, 7-inches. Templet said she heard there was a 12-foot, 8-inch alligator that was brought in, but it wasn’t sold at her dock. Most fishermen, she and Michel said, have filled their tag quota.
“Some of the smaller fishermen who have a job during the week, you’ve got a few (of them) who haven’t tagged out yet,” Templet said.
Local fishermen receive anywhere from three tags to hundreds of tags depending on the amount of property they will be hunting, she said.
Templet said she buys both hides and whole alligators and processes both hides and meat for market. Occasionally, a hunter will want to keep the meat he harvested, but still sells the hide, she said. Templet then turns around and resells hides to Pitre Furs in Galliano. She sells the meat she processes locally.
“This year I haven’t been able to keep it (the meat). Last year I still had some left. This year it went out the door really quick,” she said.
The price range hunters can get for alligators goes from $10 to $40 per foot. Anything over 10 feet is $40 a foot. Prices drop for smaller alligators, Templet said.
“I’ve had a good season. We bought a lot of skins,” she added.
The month-long alligator season begins on the last Wednesday in August for the East Zone and the first Wednesday in September for the West Zone. Portions of St. Mary Parish exist in both zones, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries website.
Duggie Acosta, of Stephensville, said he filmed for the History Channel’s “Swamp People” for two and half weeks helping Junior Edwards fill his 315 tags and another week alone filling his own 32 tags.
He declined to speak about the filming citing History Channel policy.
However, he said the alligators caught on his personal tags averaged 9-feet, 6-inches in length.
“I caught some beautiful gators this year,” he said of his expeditions in Lower St. Martin Parish.
Hunting and trapping as a way of life is a dying art.
Raymond Rink Sr., 80, of Morgan City, said he’s been catfishing, trapping, crabbing and hunting alligators all his life.
“My daddy did that all of his life, and that’s how I was born and raised doing that,” he said.
His father and uncles all worked for themselves trapping and fishing, he said, but his two sons, daughter and grandchildren have mostly left the old ways.
“Most of them went to school and work different jobs,” Rink said.
His grandson, Jacob Rink, and a friend, Guy Poche, help him now that he’s older.
“I’m getting too old … at my age I’ve got to have a little help now,” he said.
Rink and company filled his tags in a week, he said.
“We had a good season this year. The weather was good … the price wasn’t really up but it was pretty good. It was the same price as last year,” Rink said.
Male alligators average 10 to 15 feet in length and can weigh 1,000 pounds; females grow to a maximum of about 9-feet, 8-inches, the National Geographic states. Hatchlings are 6 to 8 inches long with yellow and black stripes. Juveniles, which are on the menu for dozens of predators including birds, raccoons, bobcats, and even other alligators, usually stay with their mothers for about two years, according to the magazine’s website.
Adult alligators feed mainly on fish, turtles, snakes and small mammals. However, they are opportunists and a hungry gator will eat just about anything, including carrion, pets and, in rare instances, humans, the website states.
Alligators can live 35 to 50 years in the wild, while in captivity they can live 60 to 80 years, the National Parks Conservation Association website states.
Females build their nests in marshy areas and along shorelines. The temperature of the nest determines the sex of the hatchlings. The mother stays close to her nest to protect it. When the young hatch, they peep and the mother helps the hatchlings out of the nest and carries them in her mouth to the water.

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