Originally published at: Watch Florida fisherman get chased off by a massive alligator | Boing Boing
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but before i go, let me retrace my steps and see if that giant fucking alligator is still right behind me. come on man, your first instinct was correct – RUN
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This guy has a bright future ahead of him in horror movies.
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Its a given anyone who goes near a body of fresh water in Florida is just asking to be eaten by an alligator.
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You greatly overestimate the instinct of Florida Man. 
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Alligators eat fish. He was going for the lure that the guy still held in front of him while falling away from it. Put the lure away! You’re literally fishing for a gator at that point!
I say this as a person that lost many bait fish to gators and had to abandon a fishing pole and run at least once.
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“Excuse me, Sir, can I see your fishing licence”.
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Escaping Alligators is only one of the tests put toward young Florida Men when they set out to become the ultimate Florida Man, along with Stealing Police Cars, Surviving a Hurricane, and Holding Up a Waffle House.
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This was my first thought when he lost sight of it, and then decided to turn back to see where it went…
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Came here for Sam Neill saying “Clever girl.” Was not disappointed.
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I can’t help but think that Tommy Lee is a name that carries a certain amount of nominative determinism regarding involvement in the kind of stories that often get tagged with the Florida Man label.
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holding up a Waffle House during a hurricane! or attempting to rob a fast food joint with…
an alligator!
edit: typo
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I was going to post something about how can people live with giant ground dinosaurs just lurking about, but I guess I live with bears and wolves (Minnesota) so maybe better the devil you know?
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I used to go out looking for them on purpose at night with older family members.
They are more active then and a flashlight will cause their eyes to glow when you shine it out in the water.
At girl scout day camp I got to hold a baby one. This was under supervision from the handlers at the Nature Center and with a small group of the older girls.
Thankfully, we never had one interrupt our fishing. Although as a kid I would have been pretty thrilled, I loved alligators.
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Indeed!
“Visibility in this brush is really crap. Hmmmm… Let me go back and see if this big ambush predator is still there… I mean, sure they can outrun deer over short distances, but I’ll be fiiiine…”
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It looks like this person has had some experience with gators, and knew that a frontal attack on land is not likely. Likely being the key word, as an injured animal, or one that is protecting its brood, for example, might break the norm. But they are ambush predators, that very rarely hunt outside of the water. Don’t think he was crazy to track it back, and he was wary enough to know that mucking around any more by the water’s edge in it’s territory was not a good idea.
Yeah, his stomp and yell tactic was a clue, yetttttt still it was a pucker moment watching him walk back toward where it was before.
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I would have ‘un-pucked’ long before that moment!!
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"…alligators are capable of short bursts of speed that can exceed 30 miles per hour
"So far, the fastest anyone has run is about 27½ miles per hour, a speed reached (briefly) by sprinter Usain Bolt
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