All the information you will ever need to conquer Alaska's Great Outdoors 

Why include a hunt that does not take place in Alaska? Many of our readers from Alaska have asked for us to include the occasional story from the lower 48. Just as many of you love to visit Alaska, Alaska hunters enjoy leaving the state for the occasional hunt down south.

 September 19-22nd found us sidetracked away from Alaska to join members of PVA representing the PVA Heritage Fund and Hunting Across America on an alligator hunt with Custom Adventures in central Florida. I can highly recommend this hunt as something to add to your to do list.

 Inside of the lodge, everything you need for a very comfortable stay

Jack with the alligator he shot the first night of hunting, 7ft 7in of eating machine. Our hunting usually began around 9pm when we would put the airboat in the water and continued into the night until we had the gators we wanted to harvest that night.

To truly understand the gator population in Florida one just has to shine a light across most any body of water and see the hundreds of orange eyes peering at you across the water. I am surprised after this hunt that their are not more alligator/human interaction problems in Florida.

Me (Doug Warren) with the 7ft gator I harvested the second night of our hunt.

After trying to harvest my gator with a harpoon 4 times I switched to the scoped crossbow. These gators are fast and you must act very quickly before they decide to slip under the water and have nothing to do with you.

A view of the lodge where we stayed during our trip. The lodge was accessible for our wheelchair hunters and VERY comfortable for everyone.

Jack interviewing with Mike Morgan with Hunting Across America about the hunt and the mission of the PVA Heritage fund.

Trey Lindsay of Hunting Across America with his 7ft 7in Gator he harvested the second night of the hunt.

The objective is to float as close as possible to the alligator and either connect with a harpoon or with a crossbow. Once a connecting shot is made the string connected to the crossbow bolt or harpoon flies off the boat attached to a float. When you retrieve the float and apply pressure to the gator the fight is on, once the gator wears down he is pulled to the boat and a bang stick finishes the job. Lots of excitement as you can count on those big gator jaws opening  and closing in anger as he trashes around continuously when he gets to the boat, being cautious is the name of the game.

Alaska's Great Outdoors supports the Paralyzed Veterans of America Heritage Fund, please consider helping our heroes with their great sports programs for our wounded Veterans and others with disabilities, every dollar makes a difference.