Big Joe the bull gator

Slogging through the mud beneath a full moon on the tail at Hillsborough County's Dead River Park, my gang of elementary school adventurers wondered if we would ever find the fabled Swamp Ape. This hominid cryptid, also known as the Skunk Ape, was rumored to inhabit the wetlands that surround the Hillsborough River.

I had asked my friend, Ranger Jack Coleman, a.k.a. Dead River Jack, to make a guest appearance in his dusty old gorilla suit. But, being hunting season, he declined. So after an half hour of wandering aimlessly through the dark, I sat the boys alongside the river and told them a story about a beast that once inhabited this stretch of river.

Big Joe the bull gator was a solid 10-footer with no fear of humans. I had five separate run-ins with this swamp monster over a 15-year period. He once nearly tipped over my canoe with one swipe of his tail, but it wasn't until he started stalking Cub Scouts camped at Dead River that Big Joe had to go.

A licensed trapper came in and put out some bait, which Big Joe eventually took. But the beast did not go gently into that good night. Coleman knew they were in for a fight when the alligator bent a piece of re-bar that anchored bait to the shoreline.

Of course, my Cub Scouts didn't believe me when I told them about Big Joe (they were still looking for the Swamp Ape). That is, until the next morning when Coleman joined us for breakfast and pulled the gator's head out of a wheelbarrel.

Now my boys will think twice when I tell them to keep an eye out on the water in gator country, for no sooner had Big Joe been taken out, an 8-footer moved in. But that's life on the Wild Side.

(Pictured: Jack Coleman, a park ranger at Dead River Park, had a 12-foot-4 alligator legally trapped and killed in 1993 and uses the preserved head when talking to Boy Scout troops about the dangers of alligators. Times photo - Keri Wiginton. Click to enlarge.)

Comments

[Jim Harper]

Terry, your column and blogpost this morning reminded me of another hominid cryptid I encountered by a lake near Avon Park in the early 1960s. I was 8. Legend had it that on certain nights a man made entirely of spanish moss would creep around the edges of Camp Wingmann in search of errant little boys. On the last night of our weeklong stay, campers and counselors were having a party in the mess hall, when there was a sudden commotion at the door. Somebody screamed. Turned out that the Moss Man, unusually bold, had been lurking on the steps until he was discovered and chased away by a counselor. A few boys saw him running away, a man-sized creature covered entirely in gray moss...
The tough kids later said the Moss Man was really another counselor in disguise, but no one could be really sure.