Very very cool - thanks for sharing Care to detail the after the kill stuff 1 - what meat do you save, any particular cuts that are awesome? 2 - what do you do with the hide? Salt and dry, roll and freeze? Can you tan and have something made from it? 3 - how long is your season? If someone did want to come take you up on the offer can it be combined/overlapped with tree duck hunt or spring Osceola ?
1- The meat is mostly white meat. The prime stuff is the jowls and underside tail loin. Both are pure solid meat on par with a pork tenderloin. When cooked properly, if you weren’t told, you would guess pork tenderloin. The legs, back and ribs can be eaten the ribs just like pork ribs for cooking. The other meat makes a great suasage substitute for chicken. The diaphragm meat is primo white skirt steak but we didn’t want to mess with gator guts this year. 2- I pressure wash the hide to flesh it, salted this one with about 70lbs of pool salt, and took it to a tannery about 2.5 hrs away to get it cognac color. The 9 footer will be bright blue. My daughter wants a blue gator bag. I want 12 foot gator boots. Hopefully something like these. Season is august 15-Nov 1. Only have deer and hog hunting then. Had a buddy out from California last year and we shot a 7 point buck and a 10’5” gator in the same day. We also shot some teal.
You made it on to the front page... Will probably be there for a couple years! Very cool story, and great thread. Glad you posted!!!
I think that's awesome !!!! Thanks for all the pics and I can't believe Covid or not why in hell nobody wanted to take you up on the offer. Bucket list for sure !!!
I tried gator meat back in Florida several years ago. Also had frog legs and fried fish. I really enjoyed that meal.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/31/us/florida-gator-weighed-1000-pounds-trnd/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold Do you know where this is?
