Gary Reeder
That deer would be a big one by Florida's
Thursday, January 08, 2026, 16:56

Standards.
Our Florida Key Deer are even smaller than that one. I didn't hunt them much while I was down there. You had to fight the snakes that were everywhere and Skeeters that were the size of a humming bird. Plus if there was a small canal or large mud puddle you can bet there was a gator there somewhere.
On one hunt there was a big canal that was probably 7 or 8 feet deep and there were huge gators lying on the banks maybe 6 or 7 feet from us. Kase was with me and I told him to be quiet and ease back to the top edge of the canal and we will get way from these living suitcases. Just as we got up to the top edge of the canal and maybe 8 feet from a huge gator I noticed something flying over my head. I looked up and there was an empty Coke can flying toward the big gator. It hit him and he growled and snapped at us. I was ready to throw Kase to the gator.
I went back a couple of times but never got a gator. They passed a new law down there that you could only use certain weapons like a 44 magnum bang stick and if you killed one you had to check him in. There were so many big gators that I would have had to go down among them to get the one I had killed.
If you went out with a guide in a john boat you had to
figure a way to snag the gator with big treble hooks and pull him to the side of the boat and then kill him with a bang stick. And often the gator was bigger than the boat.