As the battle for the Everglades rages on...
You got about two or three days to go get these snakes
before they're loose in the Everglades forever.
The hunters race against a ticking clock...
-Tes, hurry, hurry! Aah! -Got one?
To capture giant female pythons carrying dozens of eggs...
She's got eggs under her.
You still got that little fire starter?
Burn, baby, burn.
With Mother Nature standing in their way...
There's a big storm moving in.
-[growling] -That is a bear.
They dive into the belly of the beast.
It ate a deer, dude.
We need to get out of here. Oh!
This damn snake's the size of my leg.
Wait, she's wrapping up, she's wrapping!
East of the cypress swamp...
We're gonna find some if we keep looking.
We just gotta take our time.
Florida native Zak Catchem
and his partner, veteran hunter Bruce Mitchell,
are hot on a snake trail
in an area known as Monster Highway.
Dang.
It's starting to get a little thicker over here.
[thunder]
It's a place that has giant snakes
that just cross it nonstop.
I have a really good feeling of us getting back there.
We can really cover a lot ground
just by patrolling this highway alone.
Bruce.
I'm over here.
I see you.
Bruce, there's a snake right here!
Oh, my God, Bruce, it's so big!
I'm coming, I'm coming.
Aah! Oh!
Help me, help me. Oh!
Grab me.
Oh, my God. Aah!
Oh, my God, Bruce.
Holy crap.
Aah! Bruce, help me.
I got it. I'm gonna pull it back.
Be careful, okay?
I'm gonna stretch her out.
Whoa!
Just keep tiring her out, Brucie.
-Oh! -Oh!
Oh, my God! She's coming back.
Bruce, pull, pull.
Oh!
You're doing great, Bruce.
I can't hardly hold her.
Aah!
I got him. I got him pinned. I got him pinned.
Just get him in the bag.
This 14-foot female
is exactly what Monster Highway is known for.
Keep it going.
-Come on. -Pick him up a little bit.
Come on. Come on.
Dude, that was a big one.
It's one of the biggest pythons we've caught.
This is a giant, and it's so thick,
it's gotta be pregnant, and we're so excited
to see what's inside of it.
I think it's gonna be a ton of eggs.
-Whew. -Oh, my God.
I can't believe we got one this big, man.
Legendary.
As night gives way to a new day...
67 miles south...
[thunder] Oh, there's a storm coming.
Troy and Tes are looking for nesting Burmese pythons.
We should move to the high grounds.
Let's do it.
These snakes use that water's edge to travel,
to sneak up and look for prey.
But they won't make their nests
right on the edge of the water
because it could flood. They'll make
their nests on the high ground
but close to the edge of the water.
[thunder]
Not a place I'm gonna wanna get stuck.
Well, would you look who it is?
Look at these two.
We're heading back.
Got a big storm heading our direction.
-How about y'all? -Yeah, it's not looking good
-out here. -No.
Y'all gonna go out there?
-Yeah, that's the plan. -Well, listen,
we was planning on going out,
but this place floods real easy, right?
Within probably 30 minutes to an hour,
the water levels will rise
about a foot to three feet out here.
Due to Florida's slight downward slope,
water from rainstorms over Lake Okeechobee
gradually makes its way south into the Everglades.
The Tamiami Highway serves as a levee,
trapping the water and causing water levels
to rise as much as five feet
before floodgates are opened
to release it into the Gulf of Mexico.
Hopefully you'll be okay, but be careful.
All right. Well, thanks for the heads up, ladies.
Yeah, yeah, good seeing y'all out here.
-We'll see ya. Adios. -Good luck.
Good luck.
I mean, I'd like to try to hunt it for a little bit.
It sounds like we've got a small window
that we could get out there and get back in time.
We already here. I mean, we just getting out here,
for us to turn around and go right back.
And we don't have to go all the way deep.
We can just kind of hit some of the closer stuff
and be mindful of the time, though.
You see the top of that island right over there?
-Mm-hm, yeah. -We'll check that island out,
and then we'll get out of here, play it safe.
Yeah.
Right when that water starts to come up,
I think it's gonna push them snakes
to them little islands and certain pockets.
So we gonna be there-- that water comes up,
we gonna be out there waiting for them.
Until the weather gets too bad. Then we gonna come in.
If you look north, it looks really, really bad.
[thunder]
Further west...
Dusty's hard at work coming up with new ways
to make money off the pythons
he and the team are catching.
Yeah, I figured out a way to make dollar bills
out of every part of that python, man.
Except for one: the meat.
Most of a python's body consists of muscle.
Muscle fibers are hard to break down during cooking,
which makes python meat extremely tough,
requiring long exposure to heat.
Let that preheat to about 400 and we'll be ready to go.
Eager to open up America's palate to python meat,
Dusty's come up with an idea.
I found this chef that she said she's interested
and she's willing to fricking try it out, you know?
She's a private chef. She's got all them fancy
rich clientele, son, so I think if I can convince her
to put this on the menu, man,
that's my first step.
Hey!
-Hey. -Hey, Dusty?
-Yeah, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
-Chef Britt. -Yeah, you know
why I brought you out here, because I think
python is gonna be the next big thing.
-Okay. -Yeah, it's gonna be
one of them little things they get one little taste...
[whistles]
My goal with Chef Brittany
is to make her the first person
that brings this stuff to the market,
to all the high clientele, man.
I'm hoping that she puts a big order in today, bud,
before she leaves.
Dollar bills, baby.
To give Chef Britt a taste of the exotic meat,
Dusty plans to cook the python according to his own recipe.
Now this is the part we've all been waiting for.
Here we go.
Now, I wanna just cut it up in little bites.
That way, it's just-- you don't really need no--
um, what do you call that stuff y'all use in the restaurants?
-The silverware! -Oh, yup.
One bite, dude, she's gonna be hooked, son.
I'm gonna sell her a couple hundred pounds today.
And just straight in.
Do you have a name for what you're preparing?
Python popcorn.
-Python popcorn. -Yeah.
A lot of the best things you eat are with your hands.
So is that your special seasoning or...
Yeah, this is like the Everglades seasoning here.
Okay.
Just a little bit goes a long way,
-you know? -Yeah.
You ready to dig in?
Ladies first.
Ladies first, huh?
-Pick your favorite one. -This one looks nice
-and crispy, maybe her. -Okay.
-Cheers. -Python.
Hmm? Am I lying or dying?
It's not really what I was expecting, but that chew--
it kind of reminds me of gum.
It does have a little game flavor
that could be maybe mild down just a little bit.
Let me go back to my kitchen, do some brainstorming.
The bad news is, you know, I didn't make a sale yet.
But the good news is that ball is still rolling.
Let me get you a little to-go bag.
-Perfect. -All right, cool.
Dusty, thanks so much. Have a good one.
You, too.
Forty miles away...
See anywhere good for me to pull up?
Ashley and Kaylyn have moved
from low-lying cypress swamp
to a canal in the drier western Glades.
Is that-- Is that a hole?
Yeah, that looks fresh, too, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Today, we're heading down a canal that
the Army Corps of Engineers
has been managing for quite some time.
They've seen this large female python
that's been around the area.
This area's really high elevation
and lots of good food source for these pythons,
so the females who are looking to lay their nests,
this is the exact spot.
But the only way to get to it is by boat.
This looks like a good spot right there.
-Yeah, right there. -Between those rocks.
That's perfect.
Yeah, there's a good tree we can tie off to right there.
[thud]
-You got us tied off? -Yup.
You should be good if you wanna hop up.
We gonna see what we got up here.
They think that this snake is probably pregnant,
which means that she's looking for a hole
or somewhere to lay these eggs now.
So it's really important that we find her
and get her out of here before she's able to lay this nest
because that could mean another 70 more eggs.
Seemed like there was a little trail in that direction.
-Over here? -You see that?
Yeah, almost like a tiny game trail
right to your right.
Oh, yeah, I see it.
Yeah.
Ashley, hole.
What? What?
There's a hole, but I don't know if it's got anything in it.
Ashley, there's a snake.
There's a big old snake in here.
High and dry in the western Glades...
Ashley, there's a snake. There's a big old snake in here.
Ashley and Kaylyn just hit the jackpot.
-[laughs] -Oh, my God.
Okay, let's start thinking about how we're gonna get her out.
There's a big old rock, too, that I think is gonna
stop us from pulling her body out.
So maybe we could slowly dig the hole a little further back
-instead of at the entrance. -Yeah.
That is a huge snake.
It was in a hole way too small
to not only get my hand on her,
but to then pull her massive body out.
We wanna get our hand behind her head and take control
because she's big and that's our only shot.
We've gotta dig, and it's thick rock.
-Let me go get the shovel. -Okay.
You wanna stay here and watch it?
Yeah, I'm gonna stay here and watch her, I do not
-want to lose this snake. -Yeah.
-I'll be right back. -Okay.
Meanwhile...
Yesterday we was hunting not far from here
and this was all dry.
Yeah, it's coming in quick.
As the flood waters from the storm up north
begin to rise,
Troy and Tes need to find
a big nesting python fast.
We can already see that there's a lot more water
in places that there was none.
Even the spots that had water, it's now much higher.
So we gotta get moving because I don't know
what the terrain's gonna look like on the way back,
and we don't wanna get stuck out here.
I think we should move to the high ground.
The sun's out right now,
but there's a big storm moving in.
It's gonna be here in about 45 minutes to an hour.
Oh, yeah, you see all this where it's a bit higher over here?
That's perfect.
Oh, yeah, look.
Tes, I think let's avoid
the areas we gotta crawl underneath.
-Right. -I think we gonna do better
-in the long run. -All right, you gonna check
-that side? Okay. -Yeah, go find them.
Good luck.
Don't come back empty-handed.
Oh, [bleep]!
Aah!
Tes! Tes!
You got one?
Whoa!
I was crawling, and I almost crawled on it.
-Ay yi yi! -Troy, Troy, Troy, watch it!
-Oh, my God. -This is a lively one.
Don't let her get in that marsh.
Oh, I'm covered in ants.
Watch it. You got red ants on you?
-Yeah. -Hurry up. Get them off.
-Get them off. -I hate the Everglades.
-Oh! -This thing is angry.
Damn, this thing is mean.
She is protecting that tail.
Okay, Tes, you go around and get behind it.
Go from the other side.
-We gotta get the tail. -Aah!
Yeesh, that thing's looking at me. Grab her.
Aah!
Hey, watch that head, Troy, watch it.
He was looking at you.
-Aah! -Yes!
[both laugh]
Whoo!
What?
-You all right? -I'm fine.
You got the red ants off of you? Huh?
Man, I had ants in my pants. That was not good.
Look how fat this one is. I think this is another female.
This thing's big enough, it could have
40 or 50 eggs in it.
This 10-foot breeder
may be worth as much as $1,500
once the hunters fully process it.
Man.
We smoking them, baby girl, we smoking them.
But it's removing unhatched eggs
that's truly satisfying,
despite the oncoming storm.
[thunder] I mean, that's not right on us,
but if we can get out of here sooner than later.
This is making me uncomfortable.
We need to get the hell out of here.
I'm not afraid of a little bit of rain.
The water coming down though, that could be a problem.
And if our buggy gets stuck, then that's gonna be an issue.
All right, you got that?
Oh, yeah, I think I got it.
Wow, she's got some eggs in here.
- Let's roll. You ready? - Mm-hm.
In the western Glades,
Ashley and Kaylyn are digging
to access a massive snake hiding in a hole.
Here we go. Perfect.
Oh, my gosh, that is a massive snake.
Holy crap.
I have never caught a snake this big.
Oh, my gosh, look at her, look at her body.
She's completely filling up the entire hole.
This python is massive.
The body is probably heavier than my body.
This is the one we've been looking for.
Where is her head? I can't even--
she's, like, wrapped in there tight.
This has gotta be her tail. Look how skinny that is.
That's her tail.
Pull her out, pull her out.
Come on, mama. Eviction time.
Oh, she's so strong, She's wrapped around something.
Oh, there's her head. Look at her face.
-Look how big her head is. -Holy crap.
I'm gonna try to have her strike at the stick,
and when she gets far enough out, you gotta be ready
to get her head, okay?
Two hands. She is big.
Aah!
Come on.
Ashley and Kaylyn are battling a mean mother.
Whoa!
All right.
Come on.
She's a big old gal.
Come on.
Come on out. Come on out.
You got her. Yes, Ashley!
I'll get her body.
Hold that mouth, hold that mouth.
-I got her, I got her! -Get her tail!
She's wrapping up, she's wrapping!
Get your leg out of there, okay?
Okay.
Here, stand up with her.
Oh, she's fricking huge.
Look at this thing.
Whoo!
Here, let me pull her back, okay?
-Hold that head. -All right.
Whew! That was a close call.
Golly!
You talk about a big old snake, Kaylyn!
You jumped on that thing like jumping on a horse.
This damn snake's the size of my leg, you hear me?
-Yup. -I did not know about all this.
I didn't know they made them this big!
I bet you those snakes
are probably laughing at how ridiculous I looked,
just stumbling around and the pure look of fear.
This is the biggest snake I've ever seen in my life.
You know, you get out there, and you're one on one
with a python on their turf,
it's a coin toss really who's gonna win that.
She about had me all the way wrapped up, Kaylyn.
I know. She almost got your arm.
This is what we've been looking for,
and I'm so fricking happy.
We've got just elevated joy from finding our massive snake.
That is a pretty good feeling.
This 16-foot-plus monster
is not only worth more than $3,000 after processing,
but it can also lay a huge number of eggs.
[gasps] Ashley, she's got eggs under her!
Look at those things.
Oh, my God!
[gasps]
This huge python,
it was sitting on an active nest.
We could have, like, a hundred eggs,
so this is absolutely amazing.
Oh, there's so many of them.
Back at Dusty's...
What, you think she's pregnant?
Zak and Bruce arrive
with the 14-footer they caught last night.
If it's a big female and she's full of eggs,
we've taken a lot of snakes out of this swamp.
-Okay, baby boy. -Come look at this.
-Look at this big mama. -Let's see what you got.
-[laughs] -Whoa.
-That's a lot of snake, dude.
Son, she been eating good, huh?
Let's put it on the operating table, dude.
The surgeon is in.
Come on.
-Golly. -Wow.
-Oh, golly. -Come on, come on, come on.
One more time, y'all, one more time.
That's it. Leave it hanging.
-Yeah, that's it. -Wow.
It covers the whole table and some, dude.
Dude, look, its tail hanging off.
Think she's full of eggs?
Hm, I don't know.
I can't wait to open it up and see.
All right, here we go.
Look at the fat. They always that fat, Dusty?
Not always.
Look like she been eating good,
but this is like a big meal in here, bud.
Now we'll really get to see what they're eating, man.
-This is crazy. -Oh, look, it's fur.
It's a bird.
-It's a bird. -Look at that.
That ain't no bird.
No, that's fur like I said, dude.
-Look at that! -Gol!
Is it a deer?
-That's a deer! -No!
-It's a baby deer. -It sure is, dude.
That's a deer bone. Look at that.
That's a deer bone.
-No way. -It ate a deer, dude.
Look at all the bones, dude.
I just can't believe a snake can swallow one of these deer.
But we cut the thing open and it's there,
front legs, we find the deer legs.
Now, if he can swallow a whole deer,
he could swallow your kid.
No doubt in my mind.
According to some scientists,
invasive Burmese pythons have decimated
as much as 95% of small mammals in the Everglades.
As that food source dwindles,
the pythons are turning to larger animals
like hogs and deer.
After suffocating their prey,
Burmese pythons swallow it whole.
Armed with a dislocating jaw and rear-facing teeth,
pythons stretch their mouths
to fit animals larger than their own heads.
Recently, three whole deer were found inside the stomach
of a 14-foot Everglades python.
Reckon she's full of eggs?
She has to have eggs in there, right?
Looks to me, boys...
she don't have no eggs in there.
What?
You know what that tells me?
She probably already laid them.
Think we oughta go back and look?
-Yeah. -How many can
a snake like this lay?
Dude, a snake this big probably about 50--50, 60 eggs maybe.
So you got about two or three days
to go get these snakes before they're loose
in the Everglades forever.
Soon as they hatch, they take off
in a hundred different directions.
The mama don't stay there with the babies.
And they on their own, and they start eating instantly.
Soon as they come out, they start chasing stuff,
rats, spiders, bugs,
and they just get bigger and bigger
until they eat the deer.
-Good luck, guys. -All right.
-Hey, keep me posted, all right? -All right, brother.
-We gotta get out of here. -We got, like,
a mile circle to search, bro. Come on.
Further west...
Look at that.
Her eggs are like--
I mean, they're huge.
That's incredible.
With the massive python they captured
bagged and waiting on their boat,
Ashley and Kaylyn return
to remove the eggs from her nest.
They've, like, sealed to one another.
This hole is full of baby pythons.
Probably 20, maybe 30.
These eggs, they keep coming
and coming and coming.
Once a pregnant female python
decides where to lay her eggs,
she remains in that spot for several weeks.
During that time, it becomes
nearly impossible to spot the snake
because she doesn't move.
According to some estimates,
since pythons invaded the Everglades,
only half a dozen active nests have been discovered.
Whoo!
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Do you hear something growling?
[growling]
Is that a bear?
That is a bear. That's a pissed off bear.
All the sudden, you hear a bear growling
all around in the distance.
I've never heard that in the wild before.
We don't have that in Mississippi where I hunt.
Florida is home to the only
subtropical black bear population in the world.
More than 4,000 black bears roam the state,
and at a hefty 400-plus pounds, they're known to be fierce.
We gotta get these eggs and get out of here ASAP.
I can hear something walking, Kaylyn.
I cannot leave a python out here.
That's what we're here for.
In the State of Florida, you have to destroy
each egg that you come in contact with.
So if you come onto a nest,
it's your duty as an ethical hunter
to make sure that you destroy each egg
so that those pythons don't live.
She's got them all buried around here.
Look at that, another one.
You hear it? You hear it?
[growling] Oh, my gosh.
She's... She's definitely closer.
Let me know if she starts coming towards us.
Just get 'em as fast as you can.
Oh, my gosh, there's so many.
I'm sure she's either got some cubs
or she knows about this nest being here.
Yup. She's just been waiting for someone to crack it open
and get that mama out of the way.
Okay, I think we're good.
[growling] [crack]
-Did you hear that limb crack? -Yup.
That's a heavy bear.
Come on, Kaylyn, we gotta get out of here.
How many is that right now?
-Sixty-two. -Sixty-two.
Sixty-three, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68.
There's-- That's 70 eggs.
-Seventy eggs? -Seventy eggs.
Already laid.
With an astonishing 70 eggs,
this active python nest
is the biggest ever recorded in Florida.
By removing the eggs,
Kaylyn and Ashley just saved the lives
of innumerable native animals.
All right, let's go.
There has only been five active nests
found with a female on top of it in the State of Florida,
and this just so happens to be the absolute biggest.
Whoa, Kaylyn!
You ain't gonna be no weak person out here doing this.
No, you are not.
The feeling of just elevated joy
from finding our massive snake,
we found 70 eggs, we didn't get eaten by a bear.
That is a pretty good feeling.
You better know what you're doing when you get out here.
We finally got our big one!
Over at Dusty's,
Chef Britt is back,
and Dusty hopes whatever she's come up with
inspires her to put in an order of python meat.
I was worried, son, this whole thing is
gonna fall apart, man.
But the good news is, Chef Brittany's back.
I'm super stoked to see what she's gotta come up with.
Oh, I like them.
It's a secret ingredient for your python snake today.
Secret ingredient?
You need all this stuff to cook python?
I mean, my mind's blown. I ain't never seen
somebody have so many fricking pots and pans
and this and thats to cook one little bitty meal.
I thought we could make some python tacos.
Oh, tacos? Okay.
Uh-oh.
This is a meat tenderizer,
and it has these blades when you push down.
-Whoa! -And that will help
break down some of this tough tissue.
Looks like a medieval torture device.
It definitely could be.
So I'm just gonna take it--
I think I'll go this way with it.
-Huh, you can see it working. -Yeah.
Python is chewy.
Unpleasantly, almost uh-uh chewy.
Whoa, look at that.
Wow. What's this in here?
So that's just flour, some salt, pepper,
and then I'm gonna add some of these pineapple chunks in there,
and it's gonna help
with some of that gamey flavor as well.
And how come it is you put all of that bread stuff on there?
I mean, what's that good for, flours?
It's gonna give a little crunch instead of, like, chew.
Do you wanna give that pineapple slaw
a little stir for me?
-Which one, this one here? -Right here.
Give it, like, a nice little twist.
Yeah, there you go.
All right.
-Ready to taste? -Sure.
I'm gonna get you a little avocado here.
Get you some slaw.
Some radish.
Some greatness, a squeeze of lime.
All right, let's see what you think.
You wanna just give it a little wrap?
I know how to do that.
-Yeah. -You go for the first bite.
I just want your opinion, but I'll build
while you take a bite.
That's fricking good.
These are the best.
-Yeah? -Yeah.
I took that first bite,
and my taste buds exploded, man.
I ain't never tasted nothing like that.
I normally don't eat that kind of stuff either,
like all that fancy... whatever the heck was in there.
But it was good.
I think you may have been on to something.
I am gonna buy some meat from you.
And then my next event. I'll pitch it to my next client.
Thank you. I mean, you just made my day, my whole week.
With a dash of imagination and a big helping of hard work,
Dusty and Britt might have a recipe for success.
This is great, dude. It couldn't have worked out
any better, you know? Made my first sale.
I think Brittany's gonna be the perfect partner.
And with my python meat, son, and her taco,
that's a match made in heaven.
This is just the beginning
of a beautiful business relationship.
-I love it. -Cheers on that one.
Thank you so much, Dusty. Cheers.
[thunder]
As night falls...
Tes.
-Uh-huh? -This was dry
when we passed here this evening.
That water's coming up. We need to get out of here.
Troy and Tes navigate
the long way back to their buggy
across the flood waters coming in from the north.
Man, this water's moving quick.
I just hope the buggy's not drowned out.
We knew they had bad weather coming in this evening,
and we stayed a little too long and the water came up.
The water came up about a foot and a half to two foot.
I'd say close to two foot.
Okay, Tes, follow me.
Okay.
-Watch your step. -Okay.
Don't you fall and lose that snake.
Shouldn't be much longer, Tes.
Yeah.
-There we are. -Oh, there she is.
Look how much the water came up in the current.
All right, well, let's get in the buggy. Come on.
All right, I'll get up there and you wanna pass that to me?
Oh, yeah, I'm gonna hand you this.
You know, it was kind of scary,
but late this evening it paid off.
I'm glad I didn't quit early.
One mama drops 40, 50, 60 eggs.
Half of them are females.
Very lucky we was able to find them.
That was rough carrying that snake.
That was a big heavy snake, yeah, huh?
That's why I keep you around.
Nineteen miles north...
Dude, I'm thinking it's got to be here somewhere.
Bruce and Zak are racing against time
to find the python nest they may have missed last night.
This is the thickest spot
next to where we caught that snake.
And I hope they didn't hatch,
because if they hatched, we'd find the eggshells.
What we're trying to do is hurry up and get there
before all these snakes hatch and get out in the wild.
The faster this happens, the better it's gonna be,
but we just can't find these eggs.
And we're pretty sure this is exactly
where we caught the snake, but it could be
within a couple hundred foot of us.
Just keep your eyes peeled.
-In the dead of night... -Man, I hope they didn't hatch.
Zak and Bruce are searching
for a nest full of python eggs
to help battle the serpent invasion.
Florida requires hunters to immediately dispose
of any python eggs they find.
Zak, Zak!
Dude, look at that.
Way to go, Brucie, way to go.
-Come on. -That's it, though, for real?
-I never found one. -Yeah. They haven't
hatched yet, at all. I just don't wanna start
pulling them apart and have snakes just running around.
-You know what I mean? -Yup, yup.
We gotta get rid of these things right now, Brucie.
Set them on fire, I guess, huh?
-Mm-hm. -For real?
Yeah, let's bring them out in the wide open by the buggy.
Yeah. Let me put them on this thing.
- Grab my stick. - Back to the buggy.
Look, Bruce, here's our buggy.
Right in front of it, right in front of it.
Look at that hard pavement-- boom.
Yeah, that'll work.
What do you got to burn these things with?
All I got, man, I got some hand sanitizer in here.
That'll do the trick, buddy.
Regular old hand sanitizer.
- Put a lot on it. - Oh, yeah.
-It's lit. -Mm-hmm.
Burn, baby, burn. We should've made omelets.
[both laugh]
That's a lot of snakes
we took out of the Everglades with that girl.
Yeah, we gotta make sure this fire's out.
Put that dirt on it. That'll work.
We're good to go, Brucie.
As a new day rolls in...
Hey, guys. Whoa!
Hey, there you are.
We got a big'un.
Ashley and Kaylyn bring the massive python
they caught yesterday to measure and skin.
Son, that is a monster.
This is like a lifetime catch, a lifetime snake.
How much is something like this right here worth?
Really it's priceless.
This would be a real good one
for y'all to keep.
Sixteen-four with a kink.
That is a good snake.
High five, girlfriend.
-Good job. -Oh, my gosh.
Dude, I don't know how y'all did what you did, but you done it.
One thing about these pythons is
even though they don't belong here
and they're not supposed to be here and have to go,
these snakes are absolutely beautiful.
Every single detail that they have
is different on every single snake.
Start peeling it back. Ready? One, two, three.
Aah!
-One more, ready? -Yeah.
One, two, three.
It's gonna take a football team to get this thing off of here.
Hang on, I got an idea, guys.
[engine starts]
Talk about some hucklebuck stuff, Dusty.
-Look at this thing. -[laughs]
Yeah, you gotta work smarter,
not harder, right? Never cease
to amaze myself, son.
-Okay. -What I need y'all to do
is just watch it there.
If it's gonna rip or something, you gotta yell at me.
- Okay. - I'm gonna take her nice
-and easy, bud. -Okay.
-Like a Sunday drive.
This'll be the wildest Sunday drive I've ever gone on.
Okay, let me just come this way real quick.
Wait just a second.
We should put it in four-wheel drive.
All right, we're ready.
-There we go. -There you go.
You're good, keep going.
I don't wanna mess up the skin.
-At Dusty's... -If it's gonna rip or something,
-you gotta yell at me. -The team may have just ruined
a priceless snake skin.
Whoa, whoa!
What happened?
-Oh, my God. -It broke.
We snapped the string, ripped it right off.
-Damn. -Broke your rope.
She keeps giving us more and more challenges.
Completely snapped it. Right from the tree.
Once they get this big, it's almost impossible.
And it was working great until that rope snapped.
Mm-hm.
The way, for some reason,
that pythons can hold on to a larger python
is so much stronger.
Peeling it off little by little, trying not to tear it
and to keep it intact because that's really most for value.
That's your expensive cowboy boots, that's your sneakers.
Despite how crazy it seems,
it really is so precise in what we're doing.
-Kaylyn, put your hand here... -Yup, yup.
...just so this doesn't cut into it.
I was holding that the whole time.
And then if you keep it wide.
Yeah, I've been trying to just hold it like this
and guide it down.
All right, let's roll with it-- I mean, hell,
this thing's wearing me out.
-Mm-hm. -[chuckling]
All right, you're gonna watch the skin peeling?
-Yup. -All right, we're ready.
Go ahead.
-There we go. -There you go.
You're good. Keep going.
Don't let it hit the ground.
Slow down.
Watch it when it gets to the tail now.
Keep going.
[grunting]
How's it going for you, Ashley?
All right.
Is it at the tail?
-Yeah. -Okay.
Whoo!
-We did it! -Got it.
-We got our skin! -Nice.
That worked out great.
-Let me unhook it here. -Yeah, thank you.
I'll still have to get in there
-and clean it up. -Let's see it.
-Oh, good. -Beautiful.
Gosh, look at that.
Look at that beautiful skin.
I mean, she was heavy.
You should've seen us trying to get her on the boat.
Look at that.
-Look at this! -Oh, my God.
That is a monster.
Look how freaking big that is.
Did it get bigger?
It stretched a little bit off the snake.
Damn.
Do you ever measure it after you've skinned it?
Yeah, they'll grow a little bit.
-Yeah. -It's probably about 18 feet,
20 feet right now.
This is incredible.
Dang, that thing's got
another foot on it.
-It's a lot. -Yeah.
Wrap it up like a blanket.
Just that skin has gotta be
30 pounds, 40 pounds.
Yeah. I like the feeling of accomplishment
and getting things done.
It feels really good when the local people
around here are coming up to you,
telling you thank you so much for what you're doing out here
to help save the Everglades.
There's not a lot of wildlife left
because of these pythons.
That's why it's really important
for us to find these females right now.
They're looking for a place to safely put their nest,
and we gotta find them right now before they do that.
Thank you, Dusty. I appreciate it.
-You got it, I love you guys. -Respect what you do.
-Love you, too. -Yeah.
Ashley, I'm so proud of y'all.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Y'all are fricking rocking it, man.
-We'll see you again soon. -Good luck, man.
-Get some more, all right? -Yeah.
Be careful out here.
-See you, Dusty. -See ya.
-Whoo! -Man, what it must be like
to be young again, you know?
Whoo, that's a big old snake.
-Man, I'm out of breath. -Me, too.
-Tes! -Yeah?
After two intense days of python hunting
in various hostile environments...
-Put that dry stuff in there. -Okay.
Troy and Tes welcome Ashley and Kaylyn
for a home cooked meal and a few laughs.
-Hey, y'all. -Hey, girls.
Heard you need some hot sauce.
Ashley brought her favorite.
-Good. That's your favorite? -Yeah.
This is mine, too. I love it. That's is my favorite.
Mine, too. So what are we cooking?
We got some deer roast in here we chopped up
and some pork, wild pork and deer.
I was gonna bring that bottle home with me.
It's nice to hang out with other people
that can share your excitement, pride,
and all the other things that come with snake hunting.
Ooh, that's looking good.
Just also getting to relax and hang out
and not talk about snake hunting, too, you know.
Just get to catch up
and relax and enjoy each other's company.
-Ooh! -It's done?
Oh, yeah, it's the main event.
That looks amazing.
Come sit down. Sit down and take a break.
All right, twist my arm.
You know, we been working real hard.
Coming out this year at the time of the year we here,
targeting big pregnant females,
and, you know, I think it's important
for us to come together and take a day and relax,
have a little cookout, reboot, recharge our batteries.
So our plan, I think, is working good.
We just gotta keep everybody's spirits up and keep marching on.
I got a special spot in heaven for dealing with you.
Yeah, He gave you me.
I got the special spot.