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Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: twyacht on October 03, 2009, 08:05:54 AM

Title: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: twyacht on October 03, 2009, 08:05:54 AM
Get this boy some gator skin boots....


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,559103,00.html

Texas Boy, 5, Shoots Down 800-Pound Alligator

Friday, October 02, 2009

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 MyFOXHouston

Simon Hughes, 5, sits beside the 800-pound alligator he shot down in Texas.

Texas-born Simon Hughes, 5, doesn’t look intimidating. But put a gun in his hands and pit him against an 800-pound alligator and it’s a different story.

Simon's been training to handle a gun since he was just 4, his dad told MyFOXHouston — and it's a good thing, too, or else he could've gotten hurt by the mega-gator that wound up on the Hughes family ranch.

The huge alligator bit into a baited hook in a marsh on the property, coming face-to-face with Simon. The boy reacted with lightning speed, grabbing his gun and shooting the reptile in the head.


"It come out, the biggest alligator I've ever seen," Simon told MyFOXHouston. "He did his death roll."

The reptile was nearly 20 times the 3-foot, 44-pound boy’s size. It didn't survive the shooting.

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His dad Scott Hughes said there's a reason he started training his son, who is in kindergarten, to shoot guns at such an early age.

"Everything on the ranch will either bite you or stick you," he told MyFOXHouston.
Video

    * 'Gator Bait'

The little boy has now earned the nickname "Gator Bait."

"Simon was a champ, couldn't ask for any better. He was just fearless," said Chuck Cotton, a family friend who witnessed the shooting.

The family plans to cook up the meat to celebrate.
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: MikeBjerum on October 03, 2009, 08:35:11 AM
GREAT STORY!!!

You know that is a nickname that is going to stick.  Eighty years from now he's gonna be sittin on the porch with a mason jar of shine and some kid is gonna ask "Hey bait, how'd you get your name?"

Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: Badgersmilk on October 03, 2009, 08:36:03 AM
Read:  Proudest family in the world right now!  

Good shoot'n kid!
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: Hazcat on October 03, 2009, 08:40:23 AM
A single barrel 410 loaded with bird shot!  Lucky kid.
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: Badgersmilk on October 03, 2009, 08:52:41 AM
Yeah, he had a 20 gauge H&R & shells in the video, but said .410  ???  Still, lucky kid!
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: fightingquaker13 on October 03, 2009, 08:56:17 AM
A single barrel 410 loaded with bird shot!  Lucky kid.
Haz
You BETTER deny Haz jr access to this site. Otherwise you will be facing all sorts of "reasonable" demands for 16th birthday trips. Naked barefoot antelope hunts, bushman style, for antelope where you run your prey down across the Khalahari. Spearhunting (bayoneted rifles okay) for lions in the Serengeti with a Maasi guide. Swimming for sea snakes off New Guniea. Maybe Cape Buffalo with big bore airguns. Bow hunting for Brown Bears in Siberia. By the time the kid gets done, fixing up that old motor bike you have in your garage and letting him ride it will seem reasonable. ;D
FQ13
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: Badgersmilk on October 03, 2009, 08:56:27 AM
Correction, looks like a .410 gun, 20 gauge shells.  ??? ???
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: ericire12 on October 03, 2009, 09:14:45 AM
Pics ???
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: Hazcat on October 03, 2009, 09:19:51 AM
Pics ???

At the link, video, too.
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: r_w on October 03, 2009, 09:22:13 AM
A single barrel 410 loaded with bird shot!  Lucky kid.

 :o

was it:

A) Luck
B) Skill
C) Divine intervention  
D) ALL OF THE ABOVE
Title: Re: 8 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: MikeBjerum on October 03, 2009, 09:22:48 AM
Correction, looks like a .410 gun, 20 gauge shells.  ??? ???

I haven't watched it again since this post, but the empty hull I noticed on the video looked like it had been laying there for quite a while.  Could it be just one of the shots they took as they were at the ranch?
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: tt11758 on October 03, 2009, 09:46:17 AM
Alligator won tons, anyone?  :)
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: tombogan03884 on October 03, 2009, 09:50:20 AM
 A GREAT story that needs to be spread ;D
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: tt11758 on October 03, 2009, 09:58:48 AM
I always considered it a preemptive strike when I was able to eat something that would otherwise have been able to eat me.








Don't go there.   ;D
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: MikeBjerum on October 03, 2009, 10:00:48 AM
I always considered it a preemptive strike when I was able to eat something that would otherwise have been able to eat me.








Don't go there.   ;D

I'm thinking of an old adage that ends with one bite at a time  ;D
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: tt11758 on October 03, 2009, 10:02:29 AM
I'm thinking of an old adage that ends with one bite at a time  ;D

I'm glad you're my friend.  I'd hate to think of the things you'd say if you weren't.  ;D
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: PegLeg45 on October 03, 2009, 01:56:33 PM
Great story....sounds like his dad taught more than just gun handling skills......he taught him to think and react to a threat.
You'd be surprised at how many older, 'accomplished' shooters would have fumbled that one.

Good Job to both parent and child.

Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: MikeBjerum on October 03, 2009, 02:00:02 PM
Great story....sounds like his dad taught more than just gun handling skills......he taught him to think and react to a threat.
You'd be surprised at how many older, 'accomplished' shooters would have fumbled that one.

Good Job to both parent and child.



And grandparents as well  ;)
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: twyacht on October 03, 2009, 03:41:58 PM
Great story....sounds like his dad taught more than just gun handling skills......he taught him to think and react to a threat.
You'd be surprised at how many older, 'accomplished' shooters would have fumbled that one.

Good Job to both parent and child.




I thought the same thing... Way to go Dad!!!! You done good.... Probably has more sense handling firearms than the weekend warriors I see at the range...

He gets the ATTABOY of the week award!!!
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: m25operator on October 03, 2009, 04:03:40 PM
 :'( MAKES ME PROUD, come and get us, we'll sick our 5 yr olds on ya. ;D

This does need to get spread around. To aljazeer media.
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: MikeBjerum on October 03, 2009, 04:10:38 PM
:'( MAKES ME PROUD, come and get us, we'll sick our 5 yr olds on ya. ;D

This does need to get spread around. To aljazeer media.

Suppose it could signal the beginning of a new old era ...

Quote
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Japanese high command urged the emperor to invade the United States continent. Their most respected military commander, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, had this to say: "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass". Clearly the US military industrial complex was not deemed as great a threat to a successful invasion of the mainland as the American people themselves and their second amendment right.

I'll say it again - Great family!  I say that because family is never one dimensional, and anyone this well prepared in one area must be doing well in several others.
Title: Re: 5 Year Old Shoots 800lb Gator. Raised Right in TX.
Post by: Walter45Auto on October 04, 2009, 02:43:54 PM
Tell me that don't put a big smile on your face! ;D