As gators multiply at alarming rates...
Whoa!
Legends return to battle familiar foes.
Teams go to extremes to win the fight...
Where he's at, cody?
To your left, 3 o'clock.
- Oh, yeah! - Got him.
...Hunting the most dangerous areas of the swamp.
Holy [bleep bleep].
Whoa! The last thing I wanna do is get pickles hurt.
But in any war, there are casualties.
Oh, don, ain't this some fun?
And the fight is far from over.
[laughs]
it's a big one! Shoot him!
♪ ♪
in bayou black,
after a year away from the swamp,
veteran hunters frenchy crochet and gee singleton have returned
to lead a pushback against the brazen alligators.
...Did see, and I'm finding them
at more places that I've never seen alligators...
Frenchy and gee begin their season in orange grove,
an area notorious for massive alligators,
including a legendary monster they captured here years ago.
Oh, yeah.
On their very first line,
they're in for a surprise.
Oh!
A massive beast has killed the gator on their line.
Now he's disappeared.
With no sign of the attacking monster,
frenchy knows his mission has changed.
Yep.
50 miles west in st. Mary's parish,
joey edgar and zak catchem are after the monster gators
this area of the marsh is known for.
Pop, where are the alligators at, man?
This is a bad situation.
But they're off to a slow start.
They here, but we not catching them.
These alligators with this high tide,
they may be pushed back some.
Any time that the alligators are not in one spot,
they usually in another.
And you just have to think outside of the box
where they could be or look for signs to figure it out.
That's solid ground. There's trees out there, huh?
Yeah, there's a freshwater pond back there.
It's a spot where female alligators nest.
I think these bulls are going back to this pond.
Why?
Food. Nutria.
Look right here.
It's a rat trail.
I got a good feeling that the big alligators
are straight back in that hole.
Can we get back here with the boat?
No, we have to come with the airboat.
Yeah, we got to just jump in with the airboat
and go ride and look.
I need an airboat to get in this area
because it's a landlocked pond,
meaning there's no slough or waterway that goes to it,
and we have to run dry ground through the marsh to get to it.
Can't do it with my skiff. I have to use an airboat.
You gonna remember where this spot is?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
21 miles northeast
in the g.A. Cut near myette point...
Jacob landry prepares to launch.
His dad troy is sending him to hunt an area
that has seen very few gators in the past.
I'm a little skeptical about dad's plan.
You know, the last couple times we tried to fish here,
we barely caught anything.
So I'm just worried at the end of the day
we just wasted a lot of time
where we could've been putting more lines in different areas
where they possibly will be biting.
- Let's go do this, baby. - Let's do it.
Joining jacob on the boat for the second year
is oklahoma native don brewer.
Back fishing with jacob again. Me and him make great buddies.
We're gonna see if we can't stack 'em and tag 'em this year.
You know, last time we fished here,
we ain't caught crap.
We got a lot of lines out,
so we just gonna run them until we fill the boat, hopefully.
I don't know, but I know we used a whole damn bucket of chicken.
Don's best quality to me is his strength.
He's got a lot of power, he's a big guy,
and when we catch them big 10, 11, 12-foot alligators
that might weigh 400, 500 pounds,
you need every bit of that muscle in the boat.
First line, don juan.
That's it, let's do it.
Oh, and I see some swells.
- Uh-oh. - Wrapped around the tree.
Got one.
We got bubbles.
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, it's heavy.
Coming up, coming up, coming up.
Oh, man!
Whoo, yeah.
Don't wrap that line.
Here he comes, here he comes. Aah.
Hold him steady.
You can't handle that little 10-footer?
You want me to shoot and pull, too?
Shoot him!
First one of the day.
A 10-footer, huh?
I'll take it all day long.
On three. You ready?
One, two, three.
[muttering]
money maker.
We hadn't caught much here in the past,
but with the way things are changing
and the gators are being more aggressive,
I think, you know, it possibly could be different this year.
First line of the day, baby. We got a good solid.
Solid 9 1/2, 10-foot.
Yeah, good first gator.
10 miles northwest near big fork bayou,
king of the swamp troy landry and his deckhand pickle
plan to hunt an area troy calls the boneyard,
where monster alligators
are just one of the threats lurking underwater.
This is what they call the boneyard.
It's full of old cypress skeletons in here.
They cut them trees down over 100 years ago,
so now all them big stumps are right under the water.
They're right underwater,
right where you can't see 'em, huh?
You can't see 'em.
It's very hard on your equipment
going through the boneyard.
There's stumps and knocked-down trees
and dead trees and cypress knees, boscoyos everywhere.
But it's a place we usually catch big alligators.
It's worth going to.
Hey, you got a big one right here in front of you.
Watch what you're doing.
- Huh? - You hear me back there?
- Hey, hey, hey, hey! - Whoa. [bleep bleep]
whoa! [bleep]
look. What are you doing?
It's real scary
trying to navigate through them cypress stumps,
and anything could happen.
We could flip this boat over
and put a lot of water in the boat real quick.
I see a tight line.
Grab your pole.
Grab the line.
I'm gonna back up just in case it's a big one.
You got something?
I really ain't got no idea.
What we got?
Oh, look at that thing!
Whoo! Look at him.
Oh, watch him, watch him!
Whoo!
Gimme a shot!
Oh, he's fighting good!
Whoa!
Whoa, watch him.
Whoa!
- Whoo! - Bring him up, bring him up!
[gunshot]
hell, yeah. We'll take him.
He's not a big, big one.
- But we'll take him. - It's a tag.
- We ain't going home empty. - That's it.
Hey, that's what I'm talking about.
This nine-footer is a solid start,
but troy and pickle will have to catch many more
to justify the risks of coming here.
Hold on.
It's shallow in here. Hold on.
46 miles away in bayou black,
frenchy and gee are on the search for a nasty cannibal
that represents just how hostile
the gators are this season.
If you put a whole bunch of people
in one little closed-in area
and you're at the dinner table...
And after catching three vicious gators,
frenchy decides that he needs to switch to his bigger boat
as they quickly run out of room in cinderella.
Now in his bigger boat, the hunt continues.
[gunshot] hey!
Shoot him, frenchy!
- Whoo! - [laughs]
with all the damage done to this alligator,
frenchy knows this must be brutus junior's territory.
Now he and gee create a bait buffet
consisting of chicken, gator pieces,
and frenchy's secret sauce.
On a remote pond in st. Mary's marsh,
joey and zak have made their way
into the area using an airboat, but realize the foliage
makes spotting gators all but impossible.
There's too many lilies to even spot an alligator.
- That's why they here. - Yeah.
Eating frogs back here.
[sighs] we cannot see in front of us six feet.
There's so much tall grass
that this little pond seems like it goes on forever.
You can't see where the alligators are at all.
We may have to call mr. Cody fortier.
You already know I love making that call.
Joey's good friend cody is a helicopter pilot
working on a levee project in the area,
and he has helped the edgars over the years.
Even at eye level on the airboat,
the grass is tall
and you can't see through it all.
And all I need to do is give cody a call
and he'll fly over it while we there.
An eye up above is better
than just us looking at the whole from the sidelines.
It's a great tool to have in the swamp,
to have a friend with a helicopter.
Oh, my god.
That dude can fly that thing, man.
What you see, cody? You see anything?
I see a bunch of trails. I don't see too many gators,
but they got trails everywhere.
Roger that.
Oh, there's one.
3 o'clock.
Roger, we're headed that way.
You have to get on him. He looks pretty big.
Don't see him yet.
Keep going straight.
See that water?
All that dry weed?
I see him. Give me the rifle.
It's about 100-yard shot, pop.
Make it quick.
[gunshot] oh!
Go, go, go. Pass it, pass it, I got it.
Safety, let's ride.
Right here, right here, right here.
Oh, he's done.
He's done. He's done.
- That was a shot. - [laughs]
- that was a shot. - That was over 100 yards.
Over 100 yards.
What you think about that, bubba?
That's a nice shot. That's what that is.
That's a nice shot, pop. Come on.
Dude, let's see what we got.
See what we got.
Talk about a big boy. Living in this shallow hole.
Boy, that's a giant.
One, two.
That's a big boy. Hold on.
All right.
That's a big gator. Come on, cody!
Did you get it?
We just got him, cody. Thanks.
See if you can find me another one, buddy.
Sounds good.
21 miles north in the g.A. Cut,
jacob and don are hunting an area at troy's request.
But to jacob's surprise,
the area's reputation for a lack of gators is wrong.
Loaded down, baby.
We catching more gators and bigger gators
than what I expected in this area.
But I'm starting to worry
that it's a blessing and a curse all in the same time.
Because we not even halfway through our lines
and we done caught more than what I expected to catch
on the whole set
so I'm starting to wonder
if we might catch too good in here.
What do we have here, buddy?
We got meat on the line.
Oh, boy.
We got something for sure.
Something on it.
Might be a big old turtle.
Bubbles up over there.
Might be wrapped up.
If he ain't-- yeah, he gotta be wrapped up.
He ain't that damn big.
- Wrapped? - Yeah.
[whistles]
there he goes.
Hell, yeah.
Aggressive.
There he goes, there he goes.
Come on, get him, jacob, get him, get him, get him.
Hold him, d! Hold him!
Man, what you waiting on?
He's popping it, gonna pop it!
Watch him. Aah!
Hold him, d! Hold him!
Aah! Dang.
Here he comes.
Whew.
[laughs]
how them hands feel after that one?
This one is blood red.
Oh, mylanta.
Where the hell we gonna put him?
Just have to be careful.
He's big. Roll him to that side.
Ready?
One, two, three.
You know, we can only put so many gators in the boat.
I mean, you're supposed to have, what, 1,500, 1,600 pounds?
Well, you take six, seven, eight gators,
that's 1,500, 1,600 pounds.
We still got like 25 lines to run.
I don't know how in the hell we're gonna get back home.
Ever watch jaws?
Hmm?
You know that famous saying,
"I think we need a bigger boat"?
- I think we need a bigger boat. - We're gonna need something.
Still got several lines to run.
Boat's gonna get full today.
10 miles northwest,
in what the locals call the boneyard,
troy and pickle have already captured four alligators.
But a minefield of cypress knees and tree stumps
disrupt their movement.
Can I fit in here, you think?
You could try, but you'll get--
you're gonna get stuck.
Let's try to push with the pole.
See if we can get off it. We on a stump or something.
Let me get the pole there.
On three. Let's try to rock the boat on three.
I'm feeling I got a stump down there.
Looks like it moved a little bit, huh?
Yeah. You ready? On three, give it a big push. Ready?
Try to move it a little bit.
One, two, three.
This year for some reason,
the water's a little bit lower than normal.
Five or six inches difference in the water
makes a big difference.
Push, push, push!
Oh, it's coming out, it's coming out.
There we go, there we go. Push, push, push.
All right, I think we got it.
Normally this place is always hard,
and with the water low like it is right now,
I feel that we kind of pushing our luck.
Grab that line, see what's on it. Hurry.
Nothin', nothin'.
Ooh, I don't know about that.
Oh, yeah, we got something. That's a big old boy.
It's a hook. You got it?
Come on, bring him up.
Oh-hoo! Look at that thing.
That's a big old boy.
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.
Watch it, watch it, watch it.
- Whoa! - Whoa!
Whoa, watch him.
Give me a shot.
Bring him up, bring him up.
[gunshot]
whoo!
Whoo!
Now the fun begins.
All right. Put that head towards the front of the boat.
Grab this foot, I'll grab that one.
Big old boy.
This 400-pound monster helps fill the boat,
but the added weight will make it even more difficult
to navigate the shallow water.
I'm happy that we catching more,
but we running into a lot more trouble now.
But no risk, no reward.
No guts, no glory. That's what I say.
You gotta fight the whole time back here.
Hey, watch it. You got another one.
[thud]
you're gonna flip the frickin' boat over, dude.
46 miles southeast...
Frenchy and gee return to their line they've baited
with frenchy's special sauce.
Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho.
...And it's a monster.
If gee can get the gator to back up,
the line should be freed from the cypress knee.
Ooh!
Whoa!
[gunshot]
it seems the gator spit the hook back at the hunters,
who are lucky to make it out of this battle uninjured.
...And your team won the championship.
Whoo!
Whaa-whaa! Pow!
37 miles northwest,
in an area known by some as the boneyard...
Hold on!
...With 10 gators in the boat,
troy and pickle are filling their tags
and learning to read the treacherous terrain.
Look at that big one right there hiding in the grass.
Lucky I didn't hit it.
Watch it, watch it.
Ooh, finally into open water.
Alligator line right here.
The pole is down and against the bank.
- Oop. - Be careful, pickle.
You see something?
Oh, I don't know.
Watch it now. Be careful.
There's a big old boy back there.
Is he dead?
He looks mean.
Okay, watch it now.
He could be playing possum right there.
Even though he's not moving, be careful.
Whoa! Watch him!
[gunshot]
lord have mercy.
Possum, huh?
Yeah, he was playing possum, huh?
Boy, he got the line all tangled up.
Okay, listen, I'm gonna pull him real slow.
All right.
And just kind of lift up the head a little bit
so he don't get tangled up.
- Okay? - All right.
Try to pull him down to the water.
Okay, you ready?
He's coming?
Yeah, he's coming.
He looks like a nice one.
What you think he is?
Nine and a half. If we're lucky, 10.
On three, ready? One, two, three.
Oop! Oh, sorry.
Okay, then one more time.
Let me grab this leg, you grab that one.
Gotta pick up and in. One, two, three.
All right, good job.
It's a little dangerous back here,
but we ain't doing too bad.
Shorty, we always catch good here. Always.
15 miles south on a hard-to-reach hidden pond...
Joey and zak are using their eye-in-the-sky cody
to help them spot aggressive bulls
hiding in the tall grass and lilies.
Where he's at, cody? Where he's at?
If you jump out at the intracoastal
and go towards that landlocked pond,
I see one. He's over there to your left, 3 o'clock.
Roger.
Over there!
Yeah, we got him, we see him.
Keep going straight. He should be right around there.
All right, all right.
Kill it, kill it.
Pop, seven yards, seven yards to the right.
Locked and loaded?
Pull it before he goes down.
Give me the gun. Give me the gun.
I gotta shoot quick. I gotta shoot quick.
[gunshot]
ooh. Got him.
Come on. I got the gun, I got the gun.
Come on. Let's go.
That's how you do it, pop, that's how you do it!
- That's what I'm talking about. - Come on!
Bust his head open.
Ooh. That's a big alligator.
Ooh, man.
All right, pop. Let's get him in.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Watch yourself.
- You ready? - Uh-huh.
Let's go! All right.
Those are two really big alligators.
Really big alligators.
Y'all get the second one?
Yeah, we got the second one, buddy.
I got him.
I'm gonna start heading out.
Damn. Well, that's good.
We're stuck?
When you running through these shallow-water areas,
all you can do is trim up a little bit
and give it all the gas.
Now, the tricky part about that,
if you judge it wrong, you will run aground.
What you wanna do?
Can't just leave the alligators here, huh?
Come back, cody.
Yeah, go ahead, joe.
I can't bring 'em out. I need help bad, buddy.
If you got some rope,
I could come get them out the boat.
That'll probably help you get out.
Sounds good. I appreciate that, cody.
Sounds good.
Are you serious?
Yeah, he's gonna come and get 'em.
He's gonna pick up these alligators with a helicopter?
Yeah. And we gonna sling 'em out.
- With the rope? - With the rope.
I'm initially thinking this has gotta be a joke,
because that's so dangerous.
500 pounds each, that's an extra 1,000 pounds
that already stopped our airboat.
How is a helicopter gonna lift that out of the marsh?
Is that gonna be safe with two alligators this size?
I don't know, I don't know.
That's hundreds of pounds.
I'm real nervous about it. I'm not lying.
In an area some call the boneyard,
after risking their boat and well-being all day
to catch monster alligators,
troy and pickle race to finish their lines
before the odds turn against them.
I see a tight line.
Grab your pole and grab the line.
- He's hung up? - Yeah, he's hung up.
Oh, my god, I just seen his tail.
It look like a giant.
I tell you what, he's tangled up bad.
- Get your gun. - It's a big one?
I think so.
Load your gun.
Let's get him.
Get ready.
Whoa! Whoa!
- It's a big one! - Golly.
- Shoot him! - Yeah, he's fighting.
Got our hands full here, girl.
Whoo-hoo!
Oh, my god, pickle.
Whoo!
That's your shot. Oh!
Shoot him, pickle, shoot him!
[gunshot]
ho-ho-ho-ho!
- Ahh! - That's a big one there.
This massive 550-pound bull gator is the biggest today,
another reward to justify the risks they've been taking.
Pull as hard as you can on that leg, and I'm gonna pull.
All right, ready?
One, two, three!
Put that leg down.
At the end of the day, it's a lot of trouble,
it's a lot of hard work.
It's hard on your equipment, it's hard on us.
But we always, always catch good.
We never have a dry run when we come to this area.
- Whew. - All right, good job.
I think we oughta quit while we ahead.
It's starting to get a little deeper out here.
Let's get the hell out of here.
Hold on in case I hit something.
There's still a lot of stumps in here.
21 miles away in the g.A. Cut,
jacob and don are having a way bigger day than expected,
and it's become a serious problem.
We catching gator after gator and the boat's full.
And this area's just known for stumps and sandbars,
one of the most probably dangerous areas you can be
with a full boat like we have.
Please, sweet baby jesus, don't have one.
It's not very often in my career of alligator hunting
that I've ever asked not to have a alligator on the line.
But our boat is just to the tipping point,
and I know if we have a 10, possibly 11-foot alligator
on this line, we in trouble.
Because there's nowheres to put it
and there's no more boat to be sticking out the water.
So we gonna be in big trouble.
Man, the line's tight.
Aah!
Damn! That's a damn good one.
There he goes. Aah!
Aah!
Oh, hold him, d. Hold him, d, hold him.
He's coming up, he's coming up, he's coming up.
Ooh, look at that.
You wanna try to pull him across the front deck?
All right, you ready?
One, two, three!
Whoa, whoa.
Houston, we have a problem.
One, two, three.
We put 15 or 20 big alligators in my boat,
the level of danger just rises.
There's so many things that could go wrong.
You pull up on a stump,
if you hit a sandbar
and that wave comes from behind you,
that water's coming over the back end,
and your boat's going down whether you like it or not.
That front's starting to go down a lot.
She's overloaded.
Hold on, we hitting the bottom. Hold on. Hold on.
Jacob, stop. Oh, [bleep].
[bleep]
oh, son of a bitch.
She's down, boy, she's down.
When I realized that my motor started hitting sand
and I let off of the throttle,
the waves came crashing from behind my boat
and just filled up my boat.
It was so low to the water,
there was nothing we can do about it.
It sank us right there on the spot.
Just gonna have to flush everything out.
You could just see the bubbles coming up out of the gas tank.
Now everything we got is wet, all of our gear,
gators wanting to float out of the boat,
the boat's sunk, gas tank's underneath the water.
I mean, we're screwed now.
The only good thing is the motor didn't go under the water.
Yeah, no, that's good.
Somebody passed by and saw obviously
that we had sunk on the sandbar and stopped by to check on us.
It was a blessing to pass by when he did,
because that was the only boat we had saw
that whole entire time we was there.
I think we're just gonna have to try to pull it with your boat,
try to get it to come out a little bit.
We just had to figure out a way to prop the boat up
and get it lifted it up.
We throw three or four gators there in his boat,
and it's gonna allow it to come up.
Once you get that boat off the bottom
and get that first little inch of freeboard,
you got it licked.
You just gotta get the water out.
Oh! Damn it.
Do some bailing now.
The old backburner, huh?
Getting there, don.
You know, it sucks sinking the boat.
Unfortunately, it happened.
This guy was nice enough to pull us back to the ramp
just so I didn't have to run my engine.
On the bright side of things, nobody got hurt,
my engine wasn't ruined.
It sucked that it happened, but at the same time
it happened the best way it could've happened,
I guess you could say.
Oh, don, ain't this some fun?
15 miles south,
joey and zak are stuck deep in the marsh.
Now they wait for cody
to come airlift their two massive gators
back to the dock.
When he comes over us,
you just hook both of the ropes just like that in the hook.
So you want me to do it?
I want you to do it. Pop might get on the side.
Just so you know, if this helicopter comes down,
it's coming down on both of us.
I know he's a great pilot,
but I'm worried about him picking these two alligators up
while he's hovering over us.
I'm hoping that he's not overloaded.
He's got a big helicopter,
but I'm concerned about weight.
I don't know what he can pick up,
but this is 1,000 pounds.
You hear that? He's coming back.
It's a half a ton.
Oh, god.
Now I need to hook it up to these alligators
in a safe enough way
that his helicopter doesn't get dragged down
or pulled down by the weight of these alligators
that are still in our airboat.
It can't get hung up in anything,
or the situation could get deadly really quick.
You got it?
Go on.
Got it?
Get out of the way!
Holy hell!
[laughs]
those alligators!
Thank god! We'd still be back here all night.
Oh, my god.
When he picked them up, for a minute I was worried.
But after he leveled it off a little bit,
I think he had to get adjusted to the weight.
Cody handled that like it wasn't nothin'.
Nowadays it's very important to think outside the box
when you're hunting alligators.
Cody showed us again
he's a great pilot and a good friend to have.
You think we'll be able to move now?
Oh, yeah.
Today was a success.
It was a really good day, we caught some big alligators.
It was challenging,
but it's really nice when a plan works out.
Man, cody saved us today, huh?
Yeah. You don't see flying alligators every day.
Unbelievable.