Oh, yeah, a little breeze.
You know, this cold front,
if it could've held off for another three or four days,
we could've tagged out.
But alligators are reptiles,
you know, and reptiles, the minute it cools off
a little bit at night, they not hungry no more.
It's discouraging, but it's not surprising.
But I'm not planning on leaving any tags unfilled.
I wanna fill every one of 'em.
Feel the water. Come feel it.
Feel the difference in the temperature.
Oh, yeah.
-Feel it? -It's cold.
We started the season with 900 tags,
and we are at the complete end of our season,
and we need to fill these tags.
And so a cold snap is the absolute worst thing
that could possibly happen right now.
Using his decades of swamp experience,
Troy set up his lines away from the Atchafalaya River.
All season, because it's been so hot this year,
we've been trying to find cool water,
cool places to hunt and set our lines.
Now with this cool front, we gotta do the opposite.
We gotta find areas where the water's warm.
We gotta get off the river where it's real open and windy,
and we gonna move to stagnant water,
and it's gonna be four or five degrees warmer.
The sun warms it up.
It's shallow. There's no current.
But even with all of his knowledge,
the King of the Swamp knows there are no guarantees.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Nothing.
When I saw the wind this morning,
I figured it wasn't gonna be good.
Don't see no action.
No, I don't see nothing.
That cold front gave 'em lockjaw.
We ran 20 lines with nothing on 'em.
Nothing on 'em, I know.
You see the line, P? I don't see it.
Yeah.
Got one?
-Huh? -Yeah.
Whoa! Watch him, Peewee. Yeah, hell, yeah.
Aah! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Come on, Peewee, bring him up.
Don't move the boat!
Whoo! Careful. Don't let him pull you in.
Damn.
-Whoa! -Bring him up,
bring him up, bring him up!
Whoo, it's a big one, it's a big one.
-Ooh! -Ooh.
Come on, shoot, shoot!
[gunshot]
Oh, good job.
-We got one in the boat. -Very lucky.
This seven-footer fills the first of 15 tags,
but there's a long way to tagging out.
We filling tags, but it's slow.
It's going real slow.
That little cool front hurt us bad.
Look how clear the water is right here.
-Mm-hmm. -You see how clear it is?
Yes, I do.
This will be a perfect spot right here.
The clearer it is, the warmer it is.
Mm-hmm. I'm glad we're making it out of that cold water,
getting into some warmer areas.
Yeah, and the further back we go,
the warmer it's gonna get.
-Yup. -Know what I mean?
Yes, I do.
Warm water, alligators like warm water.
Although Troy is confident that his plan and this area
will produce enough gators to tag out,
he's brought a little insurance.
My old buddy from Oklahoma, Max, he got some bait.
It's a trap line bait that they use for trapping.
But I'm sure, I'm almost positive
it would help us on alligators.
What they do, they catch a lot of big catfish in Oklahoma,
and they take the stomach,
and they cut it up in pieces big like your finger,
and they bury it in the ground for up to two years.
And it's got a smell that's unbelievable.
I wanna put it on some hooks.
I really think it's gonna help us.
Okay, I'm down.
Mr. Troy's been having a secret weapon in his back pocket,
some old stink bait,
and I really think it's gonna help us finish the season
because there's a lot of wind today
and this bait is stinky.
Take a whiff.
Whew!
It's gills. That's the gills?
Yeah, the gills. That's the gill part.
That's gonna-- That's gonna work good.
Put that on with the chicken.
They gonna smell something they never smelled before.
Ugh! [retching]
They used to use that. They'd catch skunk.
They'd catch skunks and all with that.
Smell like a skunk.
This catfish bait is horrendous.
Mr. Troy's got a lot of faith in his stink bait,
I mean, and it stinks.
They definitely gonna smell it for sure,
but he seems to think
that we're gonna catch a lot on it,
and hopefully we do, you know.
I mean, that's we're here for.
The stinkier the better, huh?
Two years Max told me he buried it in the ground.
The more it stinks, the more they like it.
Can't wait to see what we catch with it.
Yeah.
We rebaited with catfish. We're trying to fill our tags,
we're trying to tag out, Peewee and I,
it's going real slow.
That little cool front hurt us bad.
Got action.
Ooh, look at it.
What we got? What we got?
-Talk to me. -I don't know.
[straining]
Oh, Lord.
[straining]
There's something heavy on here.
-Bring him up. -Oh, my God.
Whoo, it's a nice alligator.
Oh, Lord.
He's a big one, he's a big one.
Ooh-- whoo!
Oh, Lord.
Oh, dude, he's mean.
Whoa!
Hurry up!
[gunshot]
-Whoo! Boy, that's a big one. -Yeah!
I knew that special bait was gonna work, Peewee.
Oh, yeah.
All right, my little Peewee.
We caught good, we caught real good.
I'm pretty pumped up. I'm excited.
We down to our last tag,
and we ain't got but one line left.
We loading the boat up now.
There's no such thing as leaving a tag unfilled.
We have right at 900 tags to fill,
and we can't leave one open.
They all have to snap at the end of the season,
regardless of what we have to do.
What we got, Peewee?
Looks like it goes tight to the bank.
Oh, it's coming out.
Grab your little pole.
Yeah, it don't feel like a baby.
Feel like a good one?
Oh, get the gun.
You're gonna let me shoot him?
Yeah, it's the last tag.
Hey, let's do it.
We got one tag left,
-and this is a big one. -He's a giant.
-Whoa! -Oh, no!
Whoo!
Last tag, Peewee.
[both laugh]
What? Whoo!
You know what this is, huh?
Nine-hundred, that's what that is.
This is the last tag of the year.
And, look, we barely caught him.
Yeah!
One, two, three.
With this behemoth, Troy and Pickle
fill the last of the incredible 900 tags
the Landrys started the season with,
making this the King of the Swamp's
most successful gator season ever.
Nine-hundred tags at my age I feel is a big accomplishment.
You know, 20 years ago, I would not have been
bragging about it, but now it's kind of--
it was a hard job to do.
Thank the Lord we got it done.
I'm not looking forward
to filling 900 tags again next year.
I don't want no extra tags.
You pumped?
I'm pumped up and I'm wore out.
I feel like jumping overboard.
An 11-foot alligator to end the season
is just, I mean, I couldn't ask for any better, you know.
I think Mr. Troy feels very accomplished right now.
We bit off a little more than we could chew from last season,
we got an extra 350 tags,
but he trained his deckhand well,
and the rest of the story is history.
We pulled off a hell of a season.
Number 900.
-I heard it. -You heard it?
-That's awesome, dude. -I heard that sound.
Couldn't have done it without you.