Lawd it’s so hot in the Bayou still, the kind of heat where men get boob sweat. Not pleasant. Swamp People is in the end stretch, the 30 day alligator season has entered its final week and we got us Ashley Dead Eye Jones and Ronnie Adams back in business.
Willie Edwards is back hunting too except the luck of the Irish was not with him today. Also, Mr. Landry is taking an old-timer out for the last bit of gator tagging in his sunset years. But the biggest gator by far was bagged by Joey who says “that gator has been bothering me for two years.”
Across the swamp, hunters are rushing to fill up their boats, but our fan favorites are back in a big way this episode as we near the end of tag and bag season in Louisiana
Lake Verret is where Joey Edgar and Zac Catchem are in pursuit of the Phantom, a wily 12+ footer that’s been terrorizing his old neighborhood.
They spied the monster but the Phantom eluded them again. A plan was hatched by Joey who has a pal with him named Josh, a guy who was maimed and paralyzed in a hunting accident that he called in to help.
Josh the gator caller can mimic the call of a baby gator and THAT brought all the bulls to the yard. The Phantom was lured to his death.
On Grand River, solo hunter Willie Edwards bags and shoots a 10-footer that likely outweighs him four to one. “We want 8 foot and up –that’s the way it’s gonna be,” he says.
Throughout the episode, he had trouble with his boat motor. It finally craps out on him and he was stranded for hours. As he paddles down the bayou, he says: “I wish this day would end.”
In our interview with Ronnie Adams, the boisterous Cajun had nothing but high praise for Willie’s work ethic and gumption.
Ten miles southeast, Ronnie and Ashley Dead Eye Jones are cooking with gas. “We got to get these gators out, people are relying on us!” says Ronnie.
Pinkie swears as Che bets Ronnie she can bag 20 gators. Ronnie takes Che to a secret enclave called Dead End Bayou.
“Looking for those big mamous,” Ronnie said. “Guess what — this coon-a** [he is referring to himself] is here to make some wreckage.”
Their first mamou is a seven-footer, and they continue to hunt the Dead End.
They get gator after gator. Che drops the hammer on one after another and by the end of a long day, Ashley’s gator vision quest worked as she got her 20 gators.
“It looks like I owe you a beer Che Lau!” says Ronnie.
“I’m just a natural born killer,” says Ashley. Everybody on this show at some point says that but she really is.
Pierre Part is where we see Troy Landry help Mr. Sterling finish out his gator hunting days. He grew up with nothing and shares with Troy where the bigg’uns are.
“You got a tree shaker baby!”
Mr. Sterling is a natural born killer too and he nails a huge gator.
Back in the day, he explained they had no bullets (because they were poor) so old Mr. Sterling told Troy he was ax murdering gators after punching them to get them angry. Imagine what he thinks of millennials.
He also shared that he made his mattress out of scavenged Spanish moss and went barefoot everywhere, so his mother spent a good portion of her day pulling thorns out of his feet.
None of his kin went to grocery stores, they grew or killed everything they ate.
Mr. Sterling teaches Troy how to tell how long a gator is by measuring from the eye bump to the end of its snout.
He’s right!
See y’all next week.
Swamp People airs Thursdays on History.