Trip to Florida to hunt Iguanas and Pigs.

[country gent]

Several hurricanes released exotic animals in larger numbers over the years. These animals arnt "native" to the area and have no natural predators or other means of control. They breed and reproduce unrestricted. A animal that has many little ones each cycle but has a low rate of survival doesnt populate to quickly. Rabbits are a good example. An animal with the high reproduction and high survival rate quickly takes over an area taking food and cover from indigenous species driving them out.

On the great lakes the zebra muscle was introduced thru ships ballast water taking over the system fouling intakes and other structures, taking food from the perch crappie and other species. There are other species in the lakes now like this.

[Charlie Horse]

Being reptiles, I would think they are hard to kill. Seems you'd want something like a Stinger out of a 22 in order to anchor them. Unless you didn't mind if they ran off and died under your shed or trailer.

[dverna]

Being reptiles, I would think they are hard to kill. Seems you'd want something like a Stinger out of a 22 in order to anchor them. Unless you didn't mind if they ran off and died under your shed or trailer.

Where do you aim on one of these critters?

[jsizemore]

Where do you aim on one of these critters?

Here ya' go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Zdo8696QE

[W.R.Buchanan]

Well I'm back! Had a great time and am now completely familiar with Southwest Florida. Nice place to visit, don't want to live there! The entire state is being built up so fast it is crazy and "affordable housing" is starting at $995K and UP! 2800 unit development right next to my Bros Farm starting at $995K. "2 story Tract Houses." Down the road (Corkscrew Road) East of his place,,, "King Ranch" of Texas is building a 20 Sq. Mile Development/Town with 50,000 homes all starting at $1.2Mil +. The development is called "Kingston." Roads are already in and nice but the overall impact to traffic and resources will be horrendous.

My trip got modified due to some restrictions form the airlines. I wasn't able to take my guns because my gun case was too big and would have cost me $240 extra,,, Both Ways !!! I haven't found a rifle sized case that would be small enough to qualify as a Regular Checked Bag. L+W+H has to be below 62". My gun case was 75" total so it was oversized and commanded the extra charge. Thanks to Mayor Pete for that one. I left the guns adn the case at home,,, and after walking miles around Houston's airport, I was glad I didn't have that burden to deal with. It was bad enough pushing the Small Carryon Bag around.

Since I couldn't take my Shotgun I didn't get to go on a Pig Hunt! But I did shoot a bunch of Iguanas using their really nice Air Rifles. They had "Edguns" 30 cal. PCPs which are 8 shot Semi Autos and are very good rifles starting at $2700! The ones we used were $3000 each! https://www.edgunwest.com/store/edgu...eshiy-2-raven/ 30 cal. Pellets are 45 grains running about 850 fps.

One of the Larger Lizards I shot in a tree had his head explode when It got hit, he fell like a rock!!! Maybe a 10-15 yard shot. Pretty powerful but that shot coming from a .177 would have dropped said lizard just as well. teh reason why they use the .30 cal. guns is because not every shot is a solid head shot and they need to make sure the lizard goes down. I shot one 4-5 times before the dog got it and finished it off shaking it to death. The dog was really getting off on the blood. I guess Lizard Blood is pretty good stuff?

Me and my Bro got 16 Iguanas that day, not as many as I would have liked but still a good haul.

We were on a Boat with Two Guides and a new German Wirehaired Pointer named Phoenix. She was 13 months old and was very enthusiastic. Still learning the ropes, but no quit in her at all. It blows me away how dedicated Bird Dogs are willing to retrieve Lizards? She was Plum Tuckered Out after the days work.

My Bro made the shot of the day . He had one big one sitting on a log and drilled it right thru the head, DRT! But the pellet went right thru and clocked a 12 incher behind it,,, in the head as well!
So he got 'Shot of the Day" and nobody argued about it.

All in all it was a great trip and the hunt was well worth the $1250 it cost me ! here's some pics. I can't get the video to load but will keep trying.

Randy

[Finster101]

Is that first pic the Sanibel Causeway?

[W.R.Buchanan]

No it's over by Ft Lauderdale.

We did go over to Sanibel Island and I was impressed by the Cubic $ in Real Estate there. Beautiful place but unless you are into Water Sports or Laying on a Beach, there is very little for me to do there. Lots of destroyed Palm Trees left over from the last Hurricane, and lots of new high $ construction.

My Bro lives in Estero. I heard while I was there that Sean Hannity had moved to Naples which recently got the title "Best place to live in the US?" Except,,, Bro's wife works in Naples and it is a 1.5-2 hour 30 mile trip each way to work every day, due to the traffic!

Randy

[Finster101]

Yeah Randy, I'm in Fort Myers and have no need to go to Sanibel. This was a beautiful place when I moved here in 90. Now I'm too invested to move anywhere and the wife hates cool, not even cold weather.

Glad you had a good time. You make it this way again maybe we can get together over a beverage.

[country gent]

When you consider what a guided big game hunt would cost, and only firing a few shots and maybe some fishing compared to this and the amount of shooting you did.
Could you have sent the guns UPS to the guide ahead of time and got them that way with out having to travel with them?

Glad to here you had a great trip and enjoyed yourself. Having any hides tanned for a reminder.

[Bazoo]

Awesome. I'm glad for you, seems like a heck of a lot of fun. Something to look into for when I visit Florida to see the wife's sister. I plan to do a mess of Bass fishing while I'm there.

Thanks for sharing the pictures, pretty cool!

[Gtek]

Whole life here on east coast thirty minutes south of Space Center, we grew up with the normal little green and brown lizards. As of late we have been seeing the Peter's Rock Agama move into the area coming up from the south. Seen them in town, cut one in half in hangar door a couple weeks ago, they are getting real close! 8-12" red headed, a new 22 pumper and back yard backed up to woods. Looks like Ol' Lar might be having some extra fun!

[Bmi48219]

Whole life here on east coast thirty minutes south of Space Center, we grew up with the normal little green and brown lizards. As of late we have been seeing the Peter's Rock Agama move into the area coming up from the south. Seen them in town, cut one in half in hangar door a couple weeks ago, they are getting real close! 8-12" red headed….

They’re getting real common on the Treasure Coast too. The little green and brown ones are getting scarce.

[W.R.Buchanan]

CG: That's what I figured too, but it turns out that UPS will only ship Firearms from an FFL to an FFL now. This is a recent change because I have shipped guns by UPS before. The Airgun is no problem only affects "Firearms."

Finster: I was also taken aback by the 90+ MPH on the Freeways !!! and Bumper to Bumper at those speeds was crazy. But what was really crazy was a FHP leading the pack of cars doing 90!!!

I was bummed I didn't get to see Mara-Lago but as soon as we got on the road after the hunt, the Sky Opened up and dumped about an inch of rain in 20 minutes;. Traffic was only going 70 mph thru that.

Still had a good time, and despite some of the local issues, it's still America. Was happy to see that they had all the same Stores as we have out here and Lowes and Home Depot were Clones of stores out here.

Only thing missing was "In n Out Burgers!" You guys really need to fix that! WE ate at a place called "Twin Peaks" which I thought was "Hooters" when we walked in. Lots of Pretty Girls working there.

Sorry but the videos I've got on my phone are too big to load onto the Site. Maybe I can load them onto YouTube?

Randy

[Tripplebeards]

Make sure to take some great pics and post them!!! Yes you did. Lol… I skimmed the thread. I got all excited!


That dog is the man!!!


I was watching some videos the other day on YouTube apparently there are some giant monitors running around or were it sometime in Florida along with three different species of monkeys!!! Talk about a grand slam of invasive species, my God.

[W.R.Buchanan]

My Brother works in Miami and when he's there he stays in a Hotel next to a canal. When he was emailing me back he was looking out the window and the Lawns around the hotel were covered with Iguanas.

Problem is that is nobody is allowed to shoot there due to the High Density of Foot Traffic,,, hence they reproduce un checked. When I was there in May the Legislature was talking about putting a bounty on them as they are seriously out of control and are destroying too much stuff. As you know they already have a bounty on the Pythons, and hopefully they will have the good sense to turn the kids loose on the Iguanas. A kid with a Pellet gun could make some decent extra Cash if they were allowed to. Maybe put them thru some kid of training course so they wouldn't be shooting holes in peoples Houses. Maybe License them as "Junior Game Wardens/Pest Controllers and give them Yellow Vests with a badge on them so the Karen's weren't calling the Police with complaints about kids with guns running around ?

They have got to do something like that. Right now there is probably 10 different Pest Control Outfits in South FL and they can't keep up. Open season is the answer, but they will have to be controlled for the rest of time as they never will get all of them! Any left over can reproduce 3 times a year just like Pigs do except they lay hundreds of eggs in one drop.

Randy

[steve urquell]

My Brother works in Miami and when he's there he stays in a Hotel next to a canal. When he was emailing me back he was looking out the window and the Lawns around the hotel were covered with Iguanas.

Problem is that is nobody is allowed to shoot there due to the High Density of Foot Traffic,,, hence they reproduce un checked. When I was there in May the Legislature was talking about putting a bounty on them as they are seriously out of control and are destroying too much stuff. As you know they already have a bounty on the Pythons, and hopefully they will have the good sense to turn the kids loose on the Iguanas. A kid with a Pellet gun could make some decent extra Cash if they were allowed to. Maybe put them thru some kid of training course so they wouldn't be shooting holes in peoples Houses. Maybe License them as "Junior Game Wardens/ Pest Controllers and give them Yellow Vests with a badge on them so the Karen's weren't calling the Police with complaints about kids with guns running around ?

They have got to do something like that. Right now there is probably 10 different Pest Control Outfits in South FL adn they canm't keep up. Open season is the answer, but they will have to be controlled for the rest of time as they never will get all of them!

Randy

How aware of your presence are the iguanas? How close can you get to them before they run?

[country gent]

It wont take them long to learn once they are being shot at. Wood chucks here learned quick animals dont take long to learn at effective distances and to stay out of them,
Trapping sometimes is more effective.
The big problem here is the lack of natural predators for the iguanas and pythons.

[elmacgyver0]

It wont take them long to learn once they are being shot at. Wood chucks here learned quick animals dont take long to learn at effective distances and to stay out of them,
Trapping sometimes is more effective.
The big problem here is the lack of natural predators for the iguanas and pythons.

They need to import some Chicken Hawks, after all, I hear they taste like chicken.

[thadfz]

That looks like a great time!! Thanks for taking the time to share with us.
Personally I’m getting worn out with all the hunting focused on “big game “. This sounds like it would put the spark back into hunting for me. I’ll be looking into it some more.
Thanks again

[W.R.Buchanan]

How aware of your presence are the iguanas? How close can you get to them before they run?

The ones we shot weren't too aware even after we shot at them they'd just sit there. If you hit them they'd move. I shot one 4 times in the body and he just took the first two shots then moved and I hit him once more and then he moved again . After the last shot he made it to the water, and went all Submarine on us,, however we saw a Gator do a roll about 50 yards down from the boat in the direction he went so I think he ended up being Lunch. With the amount he was bleeding out I doubt he could have made it for more than a few minutes without somebody coming to dinner.

Mind you these were .30 cal. JSB pellets running about 850 FPS, which hit pretty hard, But to stop them in their tracks you have to hit their Pea Sized Brains.

Randy.