Deep in the south Louisiana bayous,
a scorching sun rises on a new alligator season.
Whoo! Let's go, baby!
The swamp's best gator hunters return to battle.
Hold him! Whoo!
Oh, no, no, no, ow!
Forced to fight challenges
they've never encountered before.
Water levels are at their lowest in memory.
This year, water's down like two feet.
We stuck.
It's dangerous. I saw stumps
that I never saw down here before.
Temperatures are off-the-charts high...
Blazing out here.
Man, it's hot.
Just record temperatures.
...as monsters burst out of their lairs.
Don't let it bite my boat, boy!
Plummeting water levels
block access to some of the best gator hotspots.
The water's so low. Normally that's
all underwater right there. We ain't gonna put
no lines in there this year.
To make things even more challenging...
Help! I'm gonna lose my pole.
Troy has more tags to fill
than ever before.
I have never even come close
to filling 900 tags in one year.
-[gunshot] -899 more to go.
This gator season, nature bites back
with a vengeance...
We're risking our lives out here with lightning bolts.
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
As the swampers race
to fill hundreds of tags.
Jacob, get behind me. Jacob!
[gunshots]
As a new alligator season is about to launch...
Got everything we need?
Gator hunters across south Louisiana
-are getting ready. -Whew!
Knowing that this year will bring
the toughest tests of their lifetimes.
I'm really worried about gator season.
It's gonna be boiling hot.
These gators, they love the heat,
but they can only take so much.
This August, average temperatures
have been nearly ten degrees above the normal 92,
challenging for gators and humans.
You can't give up.
In Pierre Part...
All right, Peewee, you ready?
-Yeah. -2023 alligator season.
The King of the Swamp Troy Landry gathers his team
for what will be one of their most demanding seasons yet.
Last year the Landrys came out on top
in a friendly competition
to score the biggest average gator size.
It was my year.
As a reward, they received
350 additional tags,
courtesy of a group of local land owners.
Filling the tags won't be easy,
but Team Landry knows
it's also an opportunity to make big money.
First day. I am pumped.
Let's get it.
Hey, hey. Don, you pumped?
I'm ready, boss.
It ain't gonna be 500, it ain't gonna be 600.
This year it's 900.
900?
To reach that goal, Troy plans to hit the ground running.
Knowing that it can be easier to catch big gators
earlier in the season,
he intends to make day one a sprint.
We need to catch at least each 50 alligators the first day.
50 from us and 50 from y'all.
Then I'm gonna feel comfortable.
-That's a lot. -A hundred alligators
in one day is a really, really big goal.
We have to put hundreds of lines
and run 'em day in, day out no matter what.
All right, y'all ready?
-Good luck. -See y'all later.
I've never ran that many lines in a day.
Mr. Troy is trying to catch 100 alligators the first day
and get us a good jumpstart for the rest of the season.
I think it's a good plan.
Are we gonna pull it off? I have no idea.
I've never done that before, so we're gonna see.
Pickle is Troy's trusted deckhand.
She also gave birth just a few months ago.
-Look at them little legs. -Aw, she's fat, dude.
Look at them little legs.
-She's fat. -[laughing]
I am a brand new mama of a beautiful baby girl.
Bye. Be good.
Her name is Mamie Rae,
and I am coming into the new season,
I'm ready to go, but I'm sad
to leave my baby at home. She's gonna be with my mom,
and... it's gonna be a tough one.
-Bye, Mamie. -Bye, baby.
See you later.
On Lake Verret,
Troy and Pickle baited some 150 lines yesterday.
Today they'll try to run all of them.
You gotta be productive.
Can't be slacking on the first day.
It takes all day to run 150 lines.
You know, you have about 11 to 12 hours of daylight,
and when you're trying to run 150 lines,
you have about five minutes per line.
Every second, every minute is precious.
We might've won them 350 tags last year,
we had enough tags before.
Yeah, we did.
When I started hunting with you,
we had about 520, and now we up to 900 tags.
Making their sprint even harder,
the Mississippi River is experiencing
record low waters
thanks to an extended drought
in the south.
The water's so low. Normally that's
all underwater right there.
[whistles]
And, look, that tells you how long the water been low,
for like two, three months now.
Look at all the stuff that grew.
This could be a tragedy.
Since the Mississippi feeds the Atchafalaya River spillway
and the swamps around it,
water levels are shockingly low,
exposing cypress roots that could
snag their lines and slow them down.
When you're running lines,
you have to hurry, hurry, hurry
so you can get to the next line.
And on Lake Verret, when they all tangled up
in the roots and the stumps,
you done lost two or three hours
at the end of the day just by trying to untangle lines
that are wrapped up around stumps and roots.
Then the two hunters spy what could be good news.
Look over there.
All right, I see a clothespin.
I see my line wrapped around the bottom.
The tree bark's ate up. The line looks tight.
First line, 2023 alligator season.
-Yeah, heavy. Hold that. -Let's go...
Right there, right there, let go.
Okay, I don't know what it is.
Give me the gun.
Don't let that line go.
Oh, yeah!
Oh, it's a big one. Whoo!
-Whoo! -Oh!
Watch him, Peewee, watch him.
Show him who's the boss, show him who's the boss.
Whoo!
Oh, no, he's under the boat. Come on, you.
He's hauling down there. Whoo!
-Whoo! -Ah!
Shoot him, Troy. Get him, get him.
Bring him in. Bring him in, hurry up.
Shoot! Shoot!
Whoo! Yes!
Whoo!
Good job, Peewee. Good job, baby girl.
Good alligator for the first one.
Oh, yeah, good first one, huh?
Okay, I need you to try to pick up as much as you can.
Hold on, give me a-- give me a second. All right.
All right, sweetheart, winch him.
A 12-foot monster
is just the start Troy and Pickle needed
to reach their 50-gator goal today,
but they need to keep moving and fast.
All right, all right.
We have to push it this year. It might be a lot of lines,
but we have to push it.
We don't have no choice.
We gotta push through, we gotta run our lines,
we gotta stay focused.
They all have to snap at the end of the season
regardless of what we have to do.
There's no such thing as leaving a tag unfilled.
899 more to go.
That's it, 899 more to go.
That's all right. One at a time.
In Horseshoe Bayou...
-Back at it, Anna. -Back at it.
-Right here. -I'm ready.
New captain Ashley "Deadeye" Jones
and her deckhand Anna Ribbeck are ready.
Ashley's meticulously prepared for the new season
and low water.
With the water being so low,
we really have to change our strategy
and how we hunt.
The water's levels are just
incredibly low,
-Yeah. -So we're gonna need to focus
on the bigger pockets.
Ashley spent the offseason
researching the best hunting grounds.
One thing I did is that each little area that I went to,
like, look, I got my map right here.
So this is the zone right here that we can get into.
And, look, this is what the water levels were doing.
So we know that our levels are
-around the time of 2010. -Okay.
We can come back here and see which areas
worked the best in that year. So if we can keep up
with where the records were caught in those areas.
-Right? -We got money in the bank.
Just having this notebook reminds me of areas
that the gators are gonna be in,
how high the bait needs to be in that area.
I'm just hoping that these gators are gonna be
where they've been during the offseason.
We've put in a lot of time learning these gators
and finding where they are.
You kept notes on everything?
Every single one of the areas.
Dude, I am impressed.
You really did your homework this summer.
I did. The gators are really not gonna know what hit 'em.
There's the line.
There it is. Oh, my God, Anna.
Oh, that's a big gator.
Careful I don't hit a stick.
-Talk to me. -There he is.
Get that gun ready.
Oh, Anna, watch him!
Oh, hold him, Anna, hold him. He's rolling.
Come on, give me a shot.
He's a fighter.
Come on, gator.
He's trying to go under that boat.
Come on, give me a shot.
He's gonna pop that line.
Give me a shot, Anna. Hold him.
-Night-night! -Sleep tight.
This eight-and-a-half-footer fills a tag,
but Ashley hopes her extensive research in the offseason
will fill her boat with monsters.
Look at the blood.
He had to christen your boat.
It's not about just having a good day of gator hunting.
The reason that I have this notebook
is so that we can have the best days of gator hunting.
I really have some high expectations,
and I'm just really hoping that we get some
big gators in the boat.
Next gator.
Your plan's gonna work.
I like that book you've been using.
In Violet...
Top of the morning, legend.
-You ready, baby? -Yeah, good morning.
-How you doing? -Oh, brother.
Lifelong swampers Ronnie Adams and Timmy Aucoin
are gearing up for the first day
of what's shaping up to be a tough new gator season.
Been seeing any big ones?
I got some big ones scouted out
-pretty good, brother. -Good.
We've been having the worst heatwave.
It's been bad. Louisiana has hit
a record 103.
And our parish, this heatwave
is putting a number on this land.
Mother Nature is brutal.
-Let's get it rocking, baby. -All right.
Like Troy, Ronnie plans to hit the ground running.
In order to increase my odds of doing good,
we put out 100 lines.
Boy, we ready to go. It's gonna be
a long, brutal day today in this heat,
but we gotta make it happen.
When's Ashley gonna show up?
Oh, Ashley and them starting out
in the swamp up there. They did good last year,
so we gonna let 'em rock in the swamp off the jump.
This gonna be me and you down here this year.
Y'all all right? Y'all still--
Yeah, of course we good, bro.
-Absolutely. -Good, that's good.
All right, T, you ready?
Three, two, one.
Go!
I feel like if I could come in with 30, 40 gators,
day one could set the tempo for the rest of the season.
His strategy: go back to the honey holes
that provided the best returns last year.
It's down, T. I think we might have one here.
Yeah, the bait's down.
So far that tactic looks promising.
All we need is a couple dinosaurs today, papa.
On track, Timmy.
Big boy McCoys all day, T.
I see muddy water.
Oh, that's always a good sign, bro.
Oh, yeah.
You got it?
Oh, yeah. Oh, it feel heavy.
-Is it? -Oh, yeah.
-You ready, T? -Yeah, yeah.
Whoo-hoo! What a hammer, T!
Look at the size of him, big boy.
Watch out, watch out.
Whoo-hoo!
Boy, that's a good one, T.
Hold him.
Motherhumper!
What a way to start off the day, papa.
Get a shot, baby.
Don't let him break the line.
Golly!
Come on, baby, get the shot.
Get him, T.
Shoot him!
[gunshot]
Timmy.
What a big gator to start the day, papa.
2023, baby, alligator season starting off fresh.
He's got some ump to him.
Ready? One, two, three.
Heck, yeah, brother.
Oh, my goodness!
What you think, Timmy? Ten, 11?
Eleven, 11 1/2.
First gator, and we get a load like this.
Eleven-footer, the first one.
We got 99 more lines to go, baby.
-Ninety-nine. -Yeah, baby.
After hauling in this monster on their very first line,
Ronnie's confident he can beat the heat
to make this season one of his best.
Tell you what, coming up to the first line of the season,
and me catching an 11-footer,
I just feel like that set the tempo,
off the jump, straight out the gates.
I feel like this year's gonna be unbelievable.
I mean, who comes out on the first line,
first day of the season, and catches a dang 11-footer?
Click, click.
-Yeah, baby. -All right.
We are rocking and rolling, baby.
Let's get 99 more just like that.
Outside Morgan City, Louisiana...
With over 200 tags this year,
Leron and Porkchop are also determined
to come out of the gate swinging.
Better get in that water,
-Porkchop. -Oh, yeah.
Porkchop and I, this year we're gonna
beat all our personal records.
In order to succeed at being a better hunter,
you just gotta take it step by step
and set new goals and achieve 'em.
And if we can do it, it's gonna mean a lot to me.
Yes, sir.
The first record I'm trying to break this year
is trying to catch the most gators in one day.
So the most gators we ever caught in a day was 24.
We trying to break that record and catch 25.
Once you set a goal, man, it's like
you gonna work your tail off to reach that goal.
You gonna dig deep down inside
and make sure that you gonna give
everything that you can.
Porkchop, I really want 25 gators in this boat.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Aw.
Every line I pass by,
I mean, I could spot it from a mile away.
Empty. Another one empty.
Another one empty.
Empty, empty, empty.
I'm getting so worried.
I hope so.
Oh, yeah.
Whoa! Whoo!
Give me a shot, Porkchop.
I'm gonna get you one, cuz.
Hold on, baby. Hold on.
Oh, I got him, cuz.
Oh, yeah, cuz. Fighting me.
[both whooping]
Whoo! Give me a shot on him, Porkchop.
I'm trying, cuz. Hold on now. You ready?
We got him, we got him.
You ain't got him?
Hold on.
-Get him, cuz. -You got him, Chop?
Doing that death roll, Porkchop.
Hold on, I'll slow him down for you.
-Hold on. -Get one in him, cuz.
Come up behind me, come up behind me.
-Gotta get in position. -Come behind me.
Come behind, come behind. Get him, cuz.
Hit him. Give me some.
Whoo!
Hold on.
Finally catching this nine-footer is a relief,
but there's still a long way to go.
It ain't gonna be easy.
Still gonna make it hard for us.
Ain't nothing easy out there.
Took us a long time, but we got one.
Oh, yeah.
On to the next, cuz.
On to the next, buddy.
Seven miles to the south...
Got something? Don't look too promising.
Jacob Landry and his deckhand Don Brewer
are determined to meet Troy's challenge
and catch 50 gators today.
But the low water is already
putting them behind schedule.
Ain't nothing on it. Still hanging.
This right here is not the way to start.
Yup, empty hook.
Ain't gonna catch 50 gators like that.
There's a lot of obstacles in the water this year
more than ever because of low water.
So, there's a lot of things that's going on this season
that are making it a lot more difficult.
Okay, come to the first one right here on the right.
First set of stumps.
Wrapped up though.
Got something?
Yeah, yeah, a stick so far.
Anything besides a stick?
-Nope, I got a tree root. -Damn.
I tell you what, first day of gator season
I was pumped this morning.
But I ain't feeling too pumped right now.
On to the next one.
Damn.
Ooh, look at the water, look at the water.
Muddy, muddy, muddy.
He got it boiled up brown.
-That's a good sign. -Look at the mud.
That's a damn good sign.
He got this dude tore up.
-Feels good? -Oh, yeah.
It's heavy, brother.
-Burning you up? -Yeah.
Oh, yeah, look at that, baby.
Oh, he's a ten-plus.
-Ooh. -Ooh, got a swamp donkey.
Didn't realize he was that good.
Don't give it no slack.
Ooh-whoo.
Come on, Don Brewer, give me a shot.
Tearing my hands up, damn.
Aah!
-Aah! -Oh, yeah.
Aah!
Get it, Jake, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it!
[gunshot]
-Whew. -[whistles]
-Morning. Morning to you. -Whoo!
I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning, Jacob Landry.
Lord mercy.
You know that.
-Count of three. -One, two, three.
We got one down, boss.
One, two, three.
There we go. Now we got him.
-Ooh, she done now, baby. -Now we got him.
-Oh, yeah. -Whew.
Good job, Don Brewer.
This ten-foot gator
leaves Jacob elated...
but concerned.
Catching a big alligator, you get pumped up,
you get excited, but at the same time
in the back of my mind I know we have
49 more tags left to fill today.
And if we catch big ones like this all the time,
number one, we definitely won't fit 'em all in the boat,
and number two, will we have enough energy
to run all the lines if they biting this good?
One down, 49 to go.
Back on Lake Verret...
It's a lot of work, but we're doing pretty good.
As Troy and Pickle move at a breakneck pace
to get 50 of the 100 gators
the Landry boats want to catch today,
the King of the Swamp keeps an eye on his deckhand.
I'm feeling that I have to kinda look out for Peewee.
I know we got a lot of work ahead of us,
but also she's a mom with a five-month-old baby.
So physically I don't know
if she's 100% back from having her baby,
and she's fixing to jump in the ring wide open here.
Oh, look at him, look.
Hey, you see that head over there?
See the big old head?
Oh, yeah, I see him.
-Wanna go try to treble him? -Yeah.
The low water levels do present
one opportunity to hunters.
It's easier to spot gators in shallow water.
She starts jumping three feet high in the front
of the boat that she wants to try to catch it.
-Yeah, that's a big one. -Yeah, that's a good one, c'mon.
-We're gonna catch him. -Look at the size of him.
I don't know what got into him.
Maybe it's just us having such a good first day.
We're putting alligators in the boat
one after the other, and we're ahead of schedule.
He lets me throw this hook on him.
You see his bubbles?
Get ready.
Uh! Oh!
-Bumped him, P? -Yeah, I bumped him. Dude.
-Where he's at, P? -Right here, hold on.
I think he's under the boat.
-Where'd he go? -I don't wanna lose him,
we done wasted all this time for nothing if we lose him.
Look right here, Peewee, right here!
Oh, dude, he's right there.
Throw, throw.
I got him!
-Got him? -Yup. Oop.
Watch it.
Get your gun.
Ooh! He's fresh.
Look at that. Gol.
Don't give him no slack. Don't give him no slack.
Look, he's pulling this 25-foot boat like it's a toy.
He's coming back to me.
Come now, come to mama.
As soon as he comes up, you shoot him.
-Okay? -Oh, yeah, I'm ready.
It's a big one. He's heavy.
Here he come, here he come.
-That's him, that's him. -That's him?
Uh-oh, uh-oh.
Oh, no!
Oh, my God!
Oh, no!
I think he's under the boat.
Oh, you got him in the tail.
Aah, pay attention, pay attention.
How much energy does that thing have?
-I got him. -Get your gun.
There he is, Mr. Troy. Shoot him.
Shoot! Shoot!
-That's all I had, Peewee. -I know.
I think we're gonna need the winch.
Yeah.
Watch that cable.
-That's a big alligator. -Yeah.
This 11-foot behemoth is a welcome capture,
but the King of the Swamp knows there's no time to celebrate,
not if the two Landry boats are going to land
100 gators between them.
We got him, and he was worth it,
but we lost over an hour
fighting with this one alligator,
and we still got a lot of lines to run.
I didn't think we was gonna get him in the boat for a minute.
Back in Horseshoe Bayou...
Catching the big gators is where we're gonna
have to earn our respect.
Ashley and Anna have caught
seven gators so far,
but Ashley's hoping her research
on the choice spots to hit in times of low water
will bring in winners,
and there's one huge gator she has her eye on.
He stays usually about right here within this area.
Right here where it gets real deep, right there.
Okay.
Just having this notebook reminds me
of areas that the gators are gonna be in
so we can go out there and get these big gators
in these areas and get
these exact ones that I'm looking for.
It's been a lot of time in the offseason.
In the mornings, he just likes to lurk
right there in that water.
Ashley, Ashley.
There's a massive gator out there.
Right there? That is a log.
No, that sucker's huge.
That's moving. That's not a log.
Big gator?
Anna, that has gotta be him.
You think you can get a treble in him?
-Yeah. -Okay.
That's that 11-footer.
Did he come back up right there? Is that him?
It looks like him.
I'm gonna try to get you over there
close enough to treble him, okay?
You see where those bubbles are right there?
Get a treble on him. See him?
Right there where those bubbles are.
That's a big gator.
Just gonna give it a chance, you know?
Never know where he's gonna be.
Trying to check those bubbles out,
see where that gator's stopping so I can get a treble in him.
Just can't tell.
I don't see anything that's like a definite trail,
-you know? -Yeah.
You hope to not make any mistakes,
but if it's gonna happen, it's gonna be
on those first few days because, you know,
it's like you're trying to grease your wheels,
trying to get ready,
trying to make sure that everything's in line
and, you know, every now and then, you forget something.
-Did you get a good look? -Yeah.
-Was it the big one? -Yeah.
That's the closest I've ever gotten
to that 11-foot gator,
and I'm scared that, now once we've got
that close to him, he could leave
this area forever.
Since we know where he is, let's just try
to bait this area up.
-Okay. -And just see if we can
-get him on one of our lines. -That sounds good.
And when the sun's up, like, really good,
he'll get up on the banks, and we could snipe him.
Awesome.
Whatever it takes.
We'll get him.
In Grassy Lake,
Jacob and Don have been moving
at a breakneck pace
and already have 16 gators,
but making their goal of 50 is still far away.
Oh. Got a log. Thought we had one.
We ain't gonna fill 50 tags like this.
Slow and steady ain't gonna cut it this year.
-Nope. -Too many tags.
You know, starting out today, we doing well,
we catching alligators, but we are
running empty lines also.
And I know the rate we rolling,
I don't know if we gonna make that 50 alligator mark.
We just tired, we hot, but we got a boatload.
If we come up short, it's not because
we didn't give it 100% effort.
Oh, got meat on the line, Jacob.
Hell, he's a good seven and a half, eight foot.
We'll take him. Beggars can't be choosy.
Oh, he's bigger than that.
Hell, he's nine. He's ten foot, Jacob.
Let's get him out of these stumps first.
Let's get him out of the stumps.
Ooh, listen to him, Jacob. He is pissed.
He is fixing to blow up.
Whoo.
Oh, he's coming out.
He's coming out, Jacob.
Ooh, there he goes, Jacob, there he goes, Jacob.
Boy, he's big. That's a swamp donkey, Jacob.
Man, what we got, Don Brewer?
-Ooh, yeah. -Oh. Aah!
Aah! Jacob, do something.
Aah!
Shoot him, Jacob.
-[gunshot] -Almost had him.
Do it again, do it again.
Big son of a bitch.
Feisty fella, ain't he?
Go to the other side of the boat.
Shoot him!
Coming up, boss.
Shoot him, Jacob, shoot him!
Whew.
Boy, he wound me up that time.
I just got my ass whupped.
I mean, he is a good'un.
That's is a dang nice gator.
-I got him, Jake. -Another ten-footer
will help their quest for 50...
-One, two, three. -But this pace is
starting to get dangerous.
Something's on my leg.
And my shoe.
You know, Don getting pinned like that
with that alligator, a lot of things could've happened.
That line could've cut him really bad.
It could've pulled him down in the boat
where he'd hit his head on the side of the boat.
There's a millions things that could've happened.
Luckily none of them did.
We gotta really be careful.
But at the same time we have a job to do.
-Good job, Don Brewer. -What I'm talking about, baby.
Phew. One more down.
I don't know if we gonna get 50, but we gonna get close to it.
Over in Violet...
Come on, T, give me something good here.
Ronnie and Timmy are hunting last season's best spots.
They've already run 30 lines,
but only landed a handful of gators.
As this year's record heat bears down,
what started as a great first day
threatens to become a bust.
Oh, T, legend, I'm worried.
Yeah, I know. I've been worried about that all morning.
I think they done moved out of here.
I don't know, bra.
It don't look too active. I don't see no mud.
Dang-gum it, Timmy, the last six hooks been empty.
I think it's this heat, dude.
I don't know, man. You think we might've just overfished it?
I don't know.
If you got these good areas
we call, like, a little honey hole,
you gotta kind of manage it.
You really don't wanna overfish it.
You wanna be able to hit it every year
and get you a few nice big gators.
We caught a lot of gators here last year.
Yup. Let's get to the next one, bra.
Let's hope the next one's got a little bit better luck.
Last year trying to win that competition,
I think Ronnie had, like, that tunnel vision.
All he could see was the big gators.
He wanted to get 'em all,
and I think it really wore out his spots,
and now we're not catching many at all.
Come on, baby, give me a big one here, T.
Come on, baby.
Ooh, look at the damage
to the left, son.
This is a big dude here, bro.
Oh, that gotta be a big gator.
Got to be, bra.
Got to be something big here, papa.
Yeah, it's something on it.
Yes, indeed, baby.
Come on, T, get the gun, baby.
He's coming this way.
Whoo-hoo!
Oh, that's a big one.
Golly, pulling the boat.
Motherhumper.
Oh, my goodness, T, that's a monster, bra.
Lord, T, watch him, che.
Come on, Timmy.
-Give me a shot. -Goodness, son.
Oh, that's a good one, T.
Come on, legend.
Come on, dude, get a shot, legend, get a shot.
Lights out, baby!
What a gator, papa.
-Whoo! -Whoo!
-You ready? -Yup.
One, two, three.
Oh, yeah, T, roll him in, brother.
Roll him in.
Roll him. That a boy, T.
Another one bites the dust, son.
Even though this monster is a welcome sight,
Ronnie's still worried.
The ten-footer we just caught, I mean,
it's a beautiful gator,
and I'm stoked about it, don't get me wrong.
But, man, it's just not where I wanna be.
I gotta fill more tags.
I've been expecting so many more gators in the boat,
and right now I'm far from it.
Imma a say he's ten foot.
Click, click, baby.
Booyah!
A few miles away...
I know the goal for the day is
to put 25 in the boat this morning,
but throughout the season, the goal is for us
to do better than what we did last season, man.
Leron and Porkchop are hoping to break
their single day record,
but with only ten gators in the boat
and only several lines left to run,
they're less than halfway to their goal.
Just gonna have to go run all 60 of 'em
all over again, man. We can make it happen, bro.
We just gonna have to work twice as hard.
We not gonna reach our goal by the time
we finish running our lines,
so we gotta just suck it up.
Go back and rerun the lines again, it's gonna take
a little longer than we want, but for a couple more hours
to be on the water, man, if we could catch--
do our personal best, man,
I ain't have no problem with that, bro.
Don't see no bait hanging in there.
Got it.
Hold on, baby. Fighting me.
Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
That damn thing's nice, too.
Yeah, nice one, cuz.
Come on, son, you gotta get him.
Give me a shot, Porkchop, give me a shot.
Imma give you one, cuz, hold on.
Oh, yeah, cuz, let me get him up here, cuz.
Let me get him. Might come up there, cuz.
Come on back here... Come on back here to Daddy.
Aah. Oh!
Come on, cuz, we gotta get him.
Come on, cousin, get me a shot, cuz.
Come on, you gotta take it now.
Let me bring him to you, cuz.
-Get me a shot, Porkchop. -I'm gonna get you a shot.
Come on, right there, right there.
-Man, gimme some. -C'mon, man,
gimme some, Porkchop.
That's a nice one there, cuz.
Whoo, man.
Brah.
Oh, yeah.
-I got him, cuz. -Ooh, hold on.
-I got this here, come on. -I got his back leg.
This ten-footer is the hunters' 16th for the day.
They still have a chance
at a personal one-day record of 25,
but they'll need to run their entire set of rebaited lines
for a second time in the oppressive heat.
...we normally catch a few, but, you know...
gators feed more at night-time.
So when you're re-running 'em, you know,
it's like a nail-biter when you're trying
to break your record. You're hoping that
they get hungry and attack you
right then and there.
On Lake Verret,
Troy and Pickle have bagged 20 gators,
a haul that's starting to slow down their boat.
People don't realize once you put 15 or 20 in your boat
how heavy it is. Some of them big alligators
weigh 400, 500 pounds.
A lot, a lot of weight, and it slows you down a lot,
and it's dangerous.
To keep their pace up,
Troy employs a secret weapon.
I'm gonna get my little nephew. I call him Corlon.
I'm gonna get Corlon to come and unload my boat for me,
Send whatever we got caught in
so that they can ice it down, cool them off,
and then I can continue running lines and it speeds us up
because all of a sudden we got an empty boat
instead of a full boat.
There's our savior.
How you been, dude?
Well, Corlon, I'm glad you was able to come meet us.
Gonna throw 'em in there and just haul ass.
That's gonna help us big time.
All right, kid, let's start throwing them.
One, two, three.
Son of a gun. Peewee treble hooked this one.
Really?
One, two, three.
All right, now we got it.
It's hard to lift them alligators out of one boat
and put 'em in another, but that should
speed us up a lot, where we can run
all 150 lines and not be out there till dark.
Look, the water's coming over the side of your boat.
By the end of the day, we most probably
gonna have that many more.
I hope, anyways.
-Thank you, thank you. -Thank you.
-Thank you, thank you.
You know how much difference that's gonna make
for us to run the rest of our lines?
That's gonna be a big help, Peewee.
An empty boat gives the King of the Swamp
a fighting chance to land the catch he dreams of today,
but there are dozens of lines still left to run,
and the clock is ticking.
Now we better haul ass, Peewee.
Run lines quick again.
We gotta tighten up if we're gonna catch
100 alligators today.
We gotta roll.
Meanwhile, back in Grassy Lake...
I think you can hunt over here all season
-if we have enough tags. -Oh, yeah.
Jacob and Don are down to their final
30 lines with 31 gators in their boat.
They're too far from home base to have
anyone relieve their load as they try to get 50.
Try to get these big numbers in today.
Get these gators that's biting on the lines
right now out of the sun.
We caught really well. For a first day,
you really can't have any complaints.
But, you know, Dad's expecting me and Don
to come in with 50 alligators,
and we've never had that happen before.
We've caught 40. We've caught
actually 42 in one day.
But at the same time in the back of my mind
I know in order to fill 900 tags in 30 days,
you have to come out of the gate strong.
Line down, Jacob, line down.
You see where it goes, D?
Yeah, straight down.
It might be a good'un, too.
He's holding 'er down tight, boy.
He's heavy, Jacob.
Feels like a good one, Jacob.
This gonna be a swamp donkey.
Let's see what he is.
Oh, yeah, that's a swamp donkey.
Oh, yeah, Jacob, oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Aah!
Yeah, Jacob!
Oh, yeah.
Aah!
Swamp donkey, baby.
Aah!
Damn. I can't hold his head up.
-Aah! -Whoa!
That was a close one.
He hugging that bottom.
Come on, show me your head.
Oh, yeah.
Coming up. Shoot him, Jake.
Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him, shoot him,
Jake, shoot him.
Whew.
Burning, baby?
♪ Burn, baby, burn
Oh, look them poor hands.
I will say these freaking chokers
make all the difference in the world.
Sure saves that back, don't it?
-Use some of that leverage. -Yup.
How we gonna get him out of here?
One, two, three.
This 11-footer is their biggest catch of the day.
-One, two, three. -But they still have
18 more tags to go to stay on target.
We about got us a boatload, boss.
We do.
We know that we capable of doing it
because of years past of big days that we had.
You know, the Landrys never quit.
Right at it, Jacob, gotta get 'em.
-All right. -So, even though
we got a boatload, it's still not enough.
We wanna hit that hundred--
hundred alligator mark.
Turn and burn. Let's roll.
Meanwhile back near Morgan City...
Whew!
Leron and Porkchop are running their lines a second time.
Despite the heat, they've managed to tie
their single day record of 24 gators,
and now they're looking to beat it.
If I get this single day record, it can boost my ego.
It's a personal thing that I have with myself.
I wanna be better than what I was yesterday.
That's how you push yourself to get better.
You gotta push yourself to the limit.
And if I do it, you know,
Imma put some respect on my own name.
Grab it with that pole. I don't wanna put you
too far on the bank, and he run out there
-and jump in the boat. -Yeah, he way out, [bleep].
All right, right there.
All right.
Don't let him pull you in the water now, cousin.
Whoo! Oh!
Watch him, cuz. Hold up, cuz. I'm gonna get it.
-Oh, oh, oh, oh! -Cuz...
Give me a shot, Porkchop, give me a shot!
Come on, cuz, give me a shot, cousin.
I'm gonna give you one, cuz.
Oh, you got to be kidding me, man.
Cuz, whoo! That sucker burning up my hands.
I smell it.
Cuz, get him, cuz.
Come on, he's tangled up, too. He's gonna pop the rope.
-He keep moving. -Yeah, he keep moving, cuz.
Come on, cuz. Put a shot in him.
[gunshot]
-Oh, man, gimme some. -What's up?
Cuz, I knew we'd get him.
-Cuz. -Just a matter of time.
Well, let's just get him in here our traditional style, buddy.
All right, now hold it right there, hold it
right there, I'm gonna help you.
Gimme that... gimme-gimme that,
get it out-- get out the daddy.
Oh, we got him now, cuz.
This 11-footer secures
a single day record for Leron and Porkchop...
-All right now. -And the hunters have
no intentions of slowing down
for the rest of the season.
Whoo.
I break my first record on the first day,
I'm looking for the domino effect.
And once I catch 25 gators,
it's gonna push me to catch 26.
The next thing you know, I'm gonna be at 126.
When it get to the last day,
if it keep going like it was from the first day,
me and Porkchop will be all right.
What better way to reach the magic number
than with that big king-size thing
they got sitting right there that burned all your--
burned all the fingerprints off your hands, Porkchop.
Man.
[laughs]
Yes, sir.
On Lake Verret...
Gonna be a tough year, Peewee.
Don't worry, we're gonna get it done.
Troy and Pickle's haul
for the day so far is 40 gators,
short of their goal of 50,
as they race to run
their last few lines.
Peewee and I, we doing pretty good.
We catching good. We got a boatload of alligators.
And if we can get a couple more between both boats,
Jacob and I, we should be able
to come close to catching 100 alligators.
I would sleep real good tonight
if we caught 100 between everybody.
A hundred a day would be great.
Do you see a line?
Yeah, there's an alligator on it.
Okay, all right, good.
Show him who's the boss, Peewee.
-You got him? -Mm-hmm.
Letting him-- letting him do his thing.
Fight him, Peewee, fight him. Oh, that's a good one.
Oh, Lord.
Whoo! It's a big one.
Ooh...
Big alligator.
Show him who's the boss, show him who's the boss.
Oh, no, he's rolling!
-Troy! -Bring him up.
Whoo!
Shoot him! Shoot him!
Do not let that line go.
Get him, get him.
Oh, he's wearing me out. Aah!
Shoot!
Shoot him!
-Aah! -Whew!
-Give me some. -Got him.
Good job, baby girl.
Oh, we gonna need the winch for this one.
Okay, nice.
A wincher on one of their last lines
brings their tally to 41.
Short of today's ambitious goal,
but still impressive.
That's a pretty alligator.
Young, big, healthy alligator.
Good job, Peewee.
If Jacob do good,
then we gonna be in good shape.
Yeah.
In Violet,
Ronnie and Timmy aren't having
quite the same luck.
Legend, we got another one up, dude.
That's not good.
That ain't good, bro, all these lines up.
They continue to struggle,
frustrated by the heat
and their disappointing catch.
Another one up.
Golly.
What's going on, T?
Man, I ran 98 freaking lines,
and I got ten gators in the boat.
That is embarrassing.
You know, two lines left,
they better be miracle gators,
because right now it's starting to sink in.
Like, maybe I did overfish this area last year,
because the evidence shows that we're not catching the gators.
This look like a serious crime scene.
Look, all the way over here.
-I'm telling you, huh? -Wow.
Oh, that could be something good, legend.
Gee, he done beat it up.
Golly, look at the mess.
Oh, yeah, straight to the middle.
Oh, that's a big gator, no doubt, bra.
-Look at that. -No doubt that's a big boy.
Yeah, I'm telling you, just by feeling it,
Imma say he's a 12-footer.
-Come home behind me, T. -All right.
Boy, he's heavy, T.
Golly, T.
What a hammer.
Watch him, T. He's pulling the boat!
-Give me a shot. -I can't.
Dude, that's a 12-footer all day, Timmy.
Golly.
He's going under the boat.
He's trying to pop the line.
Jeez, no way!
-You all right? -Oh, I'm all right.
-Well, it's not gone-- -Come on, Timmy,
-you gotta be joking me, dude! -Oh, no!
-What the-- -Big motherhumper got off.
Boy, that's so freaking depressing.
This gator was humongous, just through the roof big,
and for it to pop the damn line on the last line,
what a way to cap the day.
Right now I gotta focus
on what's my new game plan gonna be.
You hurt yourself anywhere?
Right now the only thing that's hurt on me
-is my pride. -Your pride.
-Yeah. -My heart's hurt right now
that we got that, and we'll never catch him again.
Oh, no, he'll never bite a hook again.
Once you get him in the hook, bra, that's it.
You'll never catch him again, bra.
Never. Man, that would've been
a great end to a long day today.
Ronnie knows to succeed this season,
he needs to change his strategy... fast.
This is the worst first day of gator season
-ever, dude. -Ever.
Back in Horseshoe Bayou...
That big one's usually swimming right there.
Maybe we catch him on your line today.
Ashley and Anna's strategy
of mapping the best hunting grounds
has put ten solid gators in the boat,
but they're running out of time to capture an elusive giant
Ashley scouted in the offseason.
Please be on our line, please be on our line.
It would be a lot different if I didn't know
that this gator was here,
but this particular gator I've seen.
I know that he's right here in this area.
And each time we pull up the line,
I'm just hoping that it's him.
And I really am just wracking my brain
trying to figure out what it takes
to get this 11-foot gator in the boat.
You see the line tied on?
It's down, just don't know where it is.
-Oh, yeah. -Ooh, it's going straight back.
Ashley, its tail. It's on the land.
Oh, God, Anna.
This is gonna be tricky.
All right, just be really careful and just
remember how dangerous these land gators are.
We can't control where they go,
and just stay on the other side of him.
His tail is just as dangerous as his mouth or his head, okay?
Come around this side.
Be careful.
He could come right at you, Ashley.
Be careful.
Aah! Watch him, Anna,
watch him, Anna! Watch him!
Ash!
-Stay behind me, Anna! -He's hissing.
Watch that tail.
He's gonna use that tail, Anna.
Watch out, he's moving again.
Watch him now. He's pissed.
He's pissed, Anna. Get back.
All right, buddy, it's me or you.
Give me a shot.
He's coming, Ashley!
[gunshot]
-We got him. -Yes!
-We got him! Yes! -Double A Team for the win.
Look at all that slack.
All he had to do was run right here.
He was coming for us. Did you hear him hissing like that?
-This is crazy. -Oh, my God.
That was genuinely very scary.
I thought he was gonna get me with his tail.
How the hell are we gonna get this thing in the boat?
Ain't that a good problem to have?
Yeah, I know.
Despite the challenges caused
by extreme heat and low water,
Ashley's detailed prep work pays off.
Now they just need to find a way
to muscle this giant into the boat.
Cinch it around his arm good.
We're gonna lift him up over this one.
-This one. -And come right in between here.
Okay.
Ready? Count of three.
One, two, three.
Whew!
Get around here and get in the boat.
-Watch yourself, Anna. -Oh, no.
-Bend with your knees. -Yup.
One, two, three.
-There you go, Anna. -Done.
-I'll roll him this way. -Come on.
There you go.
-Good job, Anna. -Yeah.
The harder something is to get, the more I want it,
and the harder that I'm gonna work to get it.
I've been gathering information
from all of the hunters that I know.
I'm willing to learn as much as I can.
I'm gonna use everything that I've learned,
and I can't wait to see how this pays off.
What a day, Anna.
-What a day. -Good day.
Great day.
Back at Duffy's...
Go back a little bit. All right. Good.
The two Landry teams are tallying up their catch,
hoping they reached
Two, three, four, five, six...
That's a good day.
Get that one next. One, two, three.
Good quality alligator.
Oh, yeah.
Well, how many y'all ended up with?
We wound up with a little over 40.
And we had right at 39, so that's 80.
That's not bad for the first day.
Oh, yeah, 80's not bad. I was hoping for 100.
You know, setting that goal of 100 alligators
in one day was a good thing.
You know, Dad was smart by doing that because
he made us go through that extra effort.
There's no way possible we gonna fill 900 alligator tags
without running lines the way we did today.
If we keep that pace up, in ten days we'll be done.
-Keep that pace? -Let's see what...
Dude, I'm wore out.
The first day's over with.
I find we did good,
but we got no time to celebrate.
We have a lot of tags left, and it's gonna be a challenge.
I would pick these little babies up, Jake,
but my back hurts from today, so...
Long first day?
Oh, too long, too long.
Peewee did real good today. I'm very happy.
You know, I was kind of worried after having her little baby
that maybe she wasn't gonna be solid
and, you know, able to hang in there with me,
but she did. She did real good. I was very proud of her.
Where's my baby at?
That's what I'm looking for. I'm over you. I'm done with you.
-I just heard her. -Where's my baby?
I will never let him know it.
Mr. Troy will never know that my knees are buckling
because I have to be strong in front of him.
Mr. Troy is strong for everybody else,
and everybody needs that person in their life.
And I feel like when we're out on the boat,
I am his rock.
He can lean on me, and I can lean on him,
so I can't show weakness.
-Okay. -Let's see what happens
-tomorrow. -Yeah, hopefully
the numbers will hold up.
Yeah, that was a long day.
Coming up this season...
We gotta catch a lot, a lot of alligators.
Watch him, whoo! He trying to get in the boat!
-Oh! -Watch your hand, Willie.
Let it out.
Give me a shot, Porkchop.
Oh! Oh!
He's huge!
Look at the slime on that thing.
Yeah, that goes to show you how low the water is.
Watch him, T!
-There he is! -Oh, my gosh.
Get him, get him.
This heat, bra, it's gotta be pushing 100 today, huh?
Told you we shouldn't have come back here.
-He's right behind me. -Oh!
Dangit!
Just stay with him. He's not hooked on nothing.
Oh!
This is the biggest thing I ever seen!
Aah!