what me and ian do

[stickbender]

     Oh yeah, no license, no limit!  All the cobras, pythons, boas, and iguanas, Cuban Jungle Anoles, water monitors, etc. , you want!  Just be careful around the brackish, and salt water marshes, as we also have Crocodiles.    An occasional few, have wandered around down the keys, and up the east coast, and have been seen off of Miami beach.  Supposedly,...... as I was told, they caught a big one up in a salt marsh, where I used to go crab trapping, and other people used to go clamming in the intracoastal waterway, on the outskirts of the marsh.  It is not too far from Ft. Pierce, which is just about 8-10 miles from me.  But this was back in the mid 60's.  As for having a specific spot to hunt the snakes, and such, you would have to ask the Game Commission, and then get permission to hunt them, if they are on private land.  But I would not think that would be a problem, since you would be doing them a big favor.  You might not see anthing at all, and you might see a few, or a bunch.  But as for the lizards, (water Monitors)  Just go to Cape Coral, on the south west coast, and go up and down the little waterways, and they are all over the place, around peoples homes, etc.  West palm beach has loads of iguanas, and Cuban Jungle Anoles.  The Jungle anoles, look like a snake in the head, and have little velociraptor hands, with long SHARP claws.   As are the Iguana claws.  I can tell you from personal experience, they can be quite nasty, if they don't you picking them up.   They have small, but very sharp teeth, and long, and very sharp claws, and can turn around like a slinky in their skin, and rake you up one side, and down the other, all the while slapping the snot out of you with their tail!  They can get quite large also. Maybe Eddie can take you down to the Big Cypress, area, and you can look for some big snakes.  Look in the sand for trails, where they have crossed.  I take it where you got the Gars, is in brackish water, since you also got a nice Flounder?  Have you eaten gar before?

                                                                        Wayne

[recurve shooter]

there are two little places where i gar fish, one is just a fresh watter creek, and the one in the pics is i guess like a brackish water bayou type thing on the edge of lake ponchitrain. and yeah i eat gar. pretty tasty. bout like trying to skin an armored car though lol. my pawpaw makes gar balls out of them, which is jist like big gar meatballs cooked in a red gravey. its pretty good.  with all the exotic pests and the bunch of native critters yall have down there, seems like you could stick something just about everytime your go bowfishin. lol when the gar arnt cooperateing we see who can stick the most crabs. then we go give them to someone for redfish bait. 

[stickbender]

     Recurve Shooter, if you cut the Gar's head off, and cut a slit on the back, straight back to the little line pattern that spirals around it, you can grab it with a pair of pliers, or something, sometimes, just a rag, and start unraveling the skin.  It unravels like the biscuit tins, in a spiral pattern.   Look at the the gar's skin, and you can see the line pattern, that  spirals around it.  I have never eaten gar, But I would like to try it.  I know some people in Okeechobee, who will take every gar you can catch.  They fry them.  Same thing, chunks of meat.  I know it is nice looking meat.  But the smell of that slime is what turned me off from eating them.   I discovered the spiral skinning by accident.  I was catching Gars, and ran out of bait, and so I cut the head off of one, and was trying to dig out some meat, and sliced a slit straight back to the spiral, and tried to pry one side off to dig out a chunk of meat, and the skin followed the spiral line, and I just kept pulling on it, and I had a whole skinned gar, in my hand.  As for using the crabs for bait, if they are small, sure, but anyting the size of my hand is going to become garlic crabs!!   Yeah, it is getting weird down here with all the exotic animals, reptiles, and fish, that have been dumped into the wild.   It can be quite a surprise as to what you might see, or catch down here at times.   Sounds like you live in a neat area.


                                                                                 Wayne

[recurve shooter]

garlic crabs??? what is that?

i'll have to try that way to skin them. i know that slime is nasty, we call it gar snot. makes my sheep skin string silencers look funny when they are all soaked with it lol. when i get home i'll dig up a pic of one crab i shot because my sister bet i couldnt hit it. it was sitting on a big broken slab of concrete just under the watter under the twin spans at manchac, so i squated down level with the slab and shot him between the eyes. never even hit concrete. if nothing els its pretty good practice.

[mullet]

 
just take a hacksaw and make a slice behind the head like you were going to cut it off, but don't. Then make another across just above the tail. Then take a pair of Tin snips and connect the two slices and pull both sides apart. take a filet knife and cut both backstraps out and throw the rest away. Two hunks of meat and no bones, easy.

[stickbender]

     Well Recurve Shooter, it sounds like you have that bow fishing down pat!  Garlic crabs are absolutely the best way to eat crabs hands down!  We have a place in Melbourne, Fla. that used to be in Grant, Fla. till it burned.  But they moved, anyway, they make garlic crabs, and you just can't eat one!  You get a sever case of gluttony!  My Girlfirend now makes them just like they do at the restaurant (Ozzie's), it is really easy.  You catch a bunch of blue claw crabs, and you get a big pot of water going to a roiling boil, and you dump in the crabs.  Once they are lightly cooked to a red color, you remove them. You and let them cool enough to handle them, and then you pop the top carapace off, and clean out all that "Crap", and rinse them, and set them on a big cookie sheet, and then melt some butter, (real butter, not that plastic crap) and mix in some granulated garlic, lots of garlic!! And old bay seasoning. You can mix it to your own taste.  My Girlfriend uses three types of granulated garlic.  you brush it all over the crabs, cover the entire crab with the mixture, and pack some in the space of the crab where the innards were, and you can also put in some minced garlic, either jar, or fresh, in that space, as well, and you put them in an oven at 375-400 degrees, on bake for 15 minutes, and every five minutes or so use a spray bottle, and lightly spray them to keep them moist, or just look in on them every now and then to see if the claws, are getting dark, or if they seem to be drying out, and if so just mist them a little.  But you proabably won't have to mist them much, being as how there is a lot of crab juice, and butter.  Take them out and whack the claws, and you have a feast fit for a king.  Once you have done a few, you will get the hang of it, and it is the only way you will want to eat them.  You will see what I mean about gluttony, I have eaten till I thought I was going to burst, but I just had to try just one more.....  I don't bother serving anything with them, since I am intent on eating crabs!  But you could serve corn on the cob, hush puppies, Cole slaw, and what ever you want.  Your favorite beverage, and you aren't going anywhere for awhile.  You will be sitting right there enjoying!   But try to get fresh crabs, they will be much better.  If you have crabs in that creek, just make yourself some crab traps, and catch a bunch.  Or you can just use a fishing pole, and a piece of fish, or head, and put it out, and when you see the line going out, or moving, slowly reel it in, and if you have a dip net, just slide it under the crab, and lift it up and put the crab in the bucket.  Some people like to use chicken necks, but I have had better luck with fish parts.  Put it on a hook, you never know, you might catch a fish too.  There are Jimmies, and Jennys.  The Jimmies, the males and will have a tail flap, with a piece that looks like the washington monument on it.  They are usually the bigger crabs.  Try for them if you can, as there is more eating, but the jennies eat just fine also!

                                                                                       Wayne

[recurve shooter]

sounds like ima have to try that this summer. me and two friends caught a little over two dozen crabs in 2 hours with the rod and reel like your talkin about.  of cource that was only after it got to dark to shoot anything.

Mullet, thats how i skin em.  man i cant wait for the 80 degree weather to roll back around.