If you had the chance...would you?

[Down Deep]

I'd recommend that you do the adventrue if you have the chance. I go to Alaska every year an there are all sorts of young people who go there who work on the charter boats. Some of them work in Alaska in the summer and move down to Mexico, Hawaii or even Austraila in the winter months to work on boats there. If you don't have any commitments there is no reason not to try it.

Almost 35 years ago when I got out of college a girlfrind and I took off to Texas. We ended up in California, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras. We were gone almost a year and a half. We saw lots of countryside and lived with the people and took some jobs on farms, delivered packages, waited tables, worked as cooks and even worked in a sweatshop making hats. I've never regretted taking that trip. Better to do it rather than wish you would have. When we got back my girlfriend hooked up with her old boyfriend and married him. We are still great friends to this day.

[DTro]

DD, that post really made me laugh.

"Yeah we had a lot of fun, then she hooked up with another dude." LOL...

sorry I guess it's friday.

[mrklean]

i would rather do crab fishing in my underwear then climb that tower

[pureinsanity]

DD, that post really made me laugh.

"Yeah we had a lot of fun, then she hooked up with another dude." LOL...

sorry I guess it's friday.

Better it happened than and instead of now when he could be married to her!

[Down Deep]

It was a relationship hatched with lots of beer and some you know what. By the time we got back home lots of water had flowed under the bridge. The guy she married was one of those straight laced do everything right type of guys. Knowing what I know about the way she thinks I can't believe she's stayed with him all these years. I guess everybody grows up ---including me.

[DTro]

It was a relationship hatched with lots of beer and some you know what. By the time we got back home lots of water had flowed under the bridge. The guy she married was one of those straight laced do everything right type of guys. Knowing what I know about the way she thinks I can't believe she's stayed with him all these years. I guess everybody grows up ---including me.

Haha, I know exactly what you mean.

[Steve Foss]

I'd probably have tried it, because I was STOOOOOPID in my 20s. OK, stupider than I still am.

And I'd probably have washed out.

As for the money, it's only great money if you stash it and head back to the States. Everything up there is way inflated because they're at the end of a VERY long shipping progression, so the whatever thousands a deck hand makes only looks good if they can escape Alaska with it.

[Double D]

I would love to try crab fishing, but only for one day. Then get me my check and get me home. Tower climbing, forget it.

DD

[YurdChaser74]

WOW that video is ceazy. Those guys should be packin shoots for a fun and quick way down. Guess OSHSA isn't cool with that. Just painted the peaks of my neihgbors house, 20' on an extension ladder about made me sick! Hell that vid almost did.

[skee0025]

I was stationed up in Alaska at the end of the Aleutians, Shemya Island. There is no way I'd work on those boats or allow anyone I know to consider it. I cant count the number of times we were medivacing personnel out, many with really nasty injuries (think crushed arms from fingertip to elbow)and the dead body watches we were put on because someone got washed over. It did have its benefits though. We had a captain give us 95 lbs of King Crab for helping one of his men get flown out.

[Palerider77]

Tower climbing looks like a great way to make $75k a year changing light bulbs.

[pureinsanity]

I wonder how many times a year you have to work? I assume not everyday

[buddha]

My buddies were fishing guides in Ak for many summers years back. They were at lodges and then stationed in outcamps. Not nearly the work and hours you see on T.V. but they said it was the most fun they had. They fished salmon on rivers.

[deadeye]

I would be game for the crab fishing thing but with one big exception. I don't mind working hard or for long hours but if I don't get a decent amount of sleep I am about as close to a true monster as you can get. So I wouldn't last long on that kind of deal, they would end up tossing me overboard or I would toss them overboard. Either way, it would end bad.

[CANOPY SAM]

Okay. Let's expand this a bit more. Now there's a TV show called, "Swamp People" (I believe that's what it's called). The show follows the lives of a number of families living on the Louisiana Bayou hunting alligators, gar, bullfrogs, and pretty much whatever else they can catch for food.

How appealing would this be to any of you? It's interesting to watch, but I'm a little surprised that these folks have become TV stars in their own right?

Does the thought of pulling a couple thousand pounds of thrashing alligator into your boat each day sound like fun, or minimally, a way you could make a living?

[mrklean]

i have always wondered how much they make off of all those gators, some of those guys are pulling 150-200 gators out has to be some decent money in that

[pureinsanity]

I ran into this from a guy on another forum who hunts gators.

Quote:

I used to clear (after expenses) about $6,000-$8,000 in one month (about 12-14 days hunting). Sometimes more and sometimes less. Depends on what skin prices are. When I first got into it they were around $40 a foot and I have seen them go down to as little as $10-$12 a foot. It just depends. A lot of gators are shipped to Europe and if the economy is bad over there than the prices aren't good.

[pureinsanity]

It looks easy to do, but in the same aspect they don't even show you the hard part much. Skinning/processing the animal. I wonder if the skin separates from the meat easier than a furry mammal? No doubt they use air pressure in the skinning process. I bet its time consuming and bad on the knives. Also I wonder how much of the hide actually gets used. I can see the underbelly being use the most as its smooth. But what about the rigid top?

[NTW]

I watch Swamp People and am jealous. I don't think I've ever seen an "occupation" that I'd enjoy more! The whole lifestyle looks great

[pureinsanity]

You think they would have a pistol for the close shots and a scoped 22 for the long shots....

[rugbymn]

I watch Swamp People and am jealous. I don't think I've ever seen an "occupation" that I'd enjoy more! The whole lifestyle looks great

Yeah, sure. The whole lifestyle looks great, except for the hurricanes, the "living hand to mouth" and the "no ice fishing" thing.

I'd love to go catch a few gators for a thrill, but I'll take my comfortable income and change of seasons up here.

[mrklean]

that could be their new job since all us Northerners think it would be so much fun, they could become guides and charge us $1,000 to shoot of of the gators for them

[CANOPY SAM]

To me, I have a difficult time looking at it as "alligator hunting." Seems to me, they're baiting a large hook, tied to a heavy line = fishing. Of course, once caught, out comes the rifle!

PI. I think in one episode, one of the "good ole' boy" daddys tells his son not to use a handgun to finish the job, but rather use the .22 long rifle. The kid tried the pistol, but it didn't go well. Pappy dispatched the gator in short order with the rifle.

One guy had 39 gators in one day's hunt. Several that were at least 8-10 feet long. Are they paid by the foot? If so, I'd guess this guy had somewhere around 300 ft. of gator. If he only got $20.00 per foot that's a $6000.00 paycheck for one day's work. Not too bad for a poor old country boy just tryin' to make a livin'!

Try eat everything deep fried for a couple weeks. Can't figure why most of these guys look like Larry the Cable Guy? I do love frog legs though.

[DTro]

That gator hunting reminds me a lot of spending the summer nights in the river bottoms chasing cats. Not so much the danger, but the elements and characters you run into, not to mention the pickles you sometimes find you've got youself into. HaHa

There has even been a .22 in the boat from time to time

[pureinsanity]

a .22 pistol would work fine for the close shots. I know people who can shoot a pistol better than a rifle. I am not one of them haha