NARRATOR: After three grueling weeks of gator season,
mother nature has the upper hand in the psychological war
pushing swampers to the edge.
In bayou Sorrel, life-long swamper Willie
Edwards and his son Little Willie
begin their day in the rain.
And it promises to get worse as the day goes on.
WILLIE: We gonna make it.
Let's rock and roll.
LITTLE WILLIE: Tornadoes?
Oh boy.
Watch the guns get wet and don't work.
WILLIE: Hey, boy.
You have to stick them with a knife [inaudible]..
Running your lines with the rain storming down on you,
nothing goes right.
I mean, when it's raining is so hard, plus putting down
your collar and everything and going
into little cracks and everything,
I mean, it's just frustrating.
And then you've got a little [inaudible]
right on top of that trying to nip ya, I mean,
it just makes everything just terrible.
That's a big gator right back there.
I can't see nothing out of my scope.
Big alligator too.
There he is.
Right there.
LITTLE WILLIE: I got it.
WILLIE: Throw it.
[grunts]
WILLIE: Come on, boy.
Come on.
WILLIE: Pull him up.
Ready?
That's what I'm talking about.
That's how it goes.
We don't give up on them.
NARRATOR: This 10-footer is a ray of sunshine on a rainy day.
We was running lines and trouble
hooking at the same time.
But that rain, you can't see the bubbles
and you can't find them.
But I mean, we stuck in there and we caught him.
But it was a little frustrating for him.
Good little minute there until we did catch him.
But we pulled through.
We got it right and finally got the hooks on him
and caught him.
WILLIE: Yeah.
We're out here working showing them how it's done.
WILLIE: We're survivors.
I mean, we were born and raised off this swamp.
Ain't nothing gonna stop us.
And we got to fill these tags.
And we're already kind of behind right now.
And you guys can keep going through it,
keep pushing through it.
But in my point of view, the rain just washed the dust off.
And we got it all straight, got the boat situated
and we were ready to roll.
Don't you see the rope coming down the bank right there?
Here, take your gun over there.
Oh.
WILLIE: There you go.
Getting up on the bank, I mean, you could slip down the hill,
be in the water.
Or you're getting up on the bank,
if you're trying to find a line and if it goes back
in the woods you ain't got your traction, your footing,
and if he gets out there, I mean,
that alligator he's on a rope.
And once you get up there where he
could hear you coming up there, he's gonna start going crazy.
And I mean, if you don't got your right footing and stuff,
you can fall.
You'll fall right into his mouth.
LITTLE WILLIE: Got him. WILLIE: How big is he?
LITTLE WILLIE: Come see if you want to take him.
About seven foot, I think.
WILLIE: Yeah.
Bust that thing in the head.
[gun shot]
Dang good [inaudible].
NARRATOR: These weather conditions
can be difficult and dangerous.
But when it comes to alligator hunting,
fortune favors the brave.
Yeah, it started to slack off a little bit.
Worked in our favor.
LITTLE WILLIE: Hey, it worked in our favor to be able to catch
that gator like that, bubba.
I got that deep of water in my boots.
That deep of water.
It's deep.
Boot deep.
WILLIE: Boot deep.
Soggy feet, can't have that.
And when you're running lines and it's just a dead beat rain
just steady beating on your back and everything,
you're getting soaking wet and you're running lines,
and you're wishing the rain would just give you a break
and just stop.
And if the rain has stopped it wouldn't be so bad.
But when you set them lines, you're
like dedicating yourself.
You got to work in rain or shine.
If they got gators on them hooks, you got to go.
It's hurricane weather.
We're good to go now.
Over there.
NARRATOR: Despite the rain and an unexpected bloody nose,
Little Willie is eager to keep up the pace.
WILLIE: Right there, Little Willie.
LITTLE WILLIE: Man!
I need that slack.
Come on, buddy.
Tell you what, we catching some good gators today.
NARRATOR: The rain may be falling hard,
but the hunters are filling up the boat.
LITTLE WILLIE: But when you're hunting on a storm, when it's
pouring down rain, yeah, you want to get it done
and go home, but it's a good thing for the alligators.
You could stay out a lot longer in the rain.
And we've got a gator on just about every line.
It's a good thing you're filling tags.
But it's a bad thing you're out there in the rain
filling tags when everybody else is at home.
Catching some good gators today.
Putting the smack-down right down on them.
I think I see some bubbles right there.
The way the weather is and everything,
it was storming down.
But as long as we're catching alligators,
it didn't matter about the rain.
We started catching them back to back.
You cannot get fired up because you're catching big alligators
and one on every hook.
I mean, that brings the day up, like it ain't even raining.
Yeah, that's where I was gonna go after.
Just trying to find somewhere to hide.
That ain't gonna help him.
We know that.
Right there.
Taking off fast, boy.
LITTLE WILLIE: Daddy, [inaudible]
water fishing over here.
Oh, that mother-fricker.
Man, come see what we got.
Pull him up.
[gun shot]
Big enough.
Plenty big enough.
LITTLE WILLIE: Give me a tag, daddy.
Yeah, that's a good gator swimming across too.
ALL: Whoa!
Whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, we're going up the middle of the dump.
NARRATOR: Willie and Little Willie
have run their boat aground in the middle of a storm.
WILLIE: Just keep it going.
And when I whipped the wheel, it over-correct--
well, it went back the other way a little too much,
and we went up the hill.
[sighs] I bet you we went up that hill good 15 to 20 feet.
NARRATOR: With no water under the skiff,
there's only one way to get free, good
old-fashioned elbow grease.
Where there's a Willie, there's a way.
Y'all two bulls, right there pushing
a whole boatload of alligator and everything on the boat.
The boat's heavy.
And I thought for sure we were stuck there.
I thought we were gonna have to go get help to get us off.
And it was pouring down raining.
And the only thing helping was the rain at that time.
Put a little shove to it.
She went right back off in the whole,
we got kicked off and going.
WILLIE: Oh, we was up out on [bleep]..
[inaudible] [bleep].
It could have been a lot worse.
I mean, if the boat would have got sideways going up
that hill, it could have bent and all of them
have been upside down in the mud, maybe our head's stuck,
and we break necks.
I mean, it could have killed you.
LITTLE WILLIE: Hey, we got it done.
WILLIE: We got it done, and we caught alligators.
And we got it done.
LITTLE WILLIE: That's how it's done right there.
WILLIE: Swamp style.