Friday, February 17, 2012
Can the Women Survive?
Last week we saw Liz take on the swamps with her female co-pilot Christy... Even though they looked like they would struggle with their 1,000 pound beast caught on Liz's late fathers line, it sure didn't stop them from ultimately succeeding and dragging in a powerful catch any man or woman would be proud of. Although it was a close call the length of the beast beat out the swamp king Troy Landry's catch of a 13 footer... They may be ladies, but definitely not the weaker sex. Best of luck to you Liz as you hunts continue!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Season 3 Is Here! Swamp Fans Unite!
The long awaited third season of Swamp People is finally here! I know anyone reading my blog was just as excite as I was about the new season airing. Now that it is here once again stay tuned to my blog for all the new going on's in the swamp land. Another fun and adventurous season is upon us. Happy hunting!
Gator Gold Rush
Premiere Date: 02/09/2012
It's day one of the thirty-day alligator-hunting season in Louisiana. This year prices are 30% higher, and with big bucks on the line, a Gator Gold rush is about to begin. Troy Landry has a plan to cash in; reuniting with 20-year partner Clint and running a second boat with son Jacob at the helm. With 430 tags, more than ever before, he's determined to retain his crown. Down in Pecan Island, Troy's helper from last year, Liz Cavalier, is running her own boat this season with 260 tags of her own. Joining her is helper Kristi Broussard, a born and bred Cajun woman who's eager to show what she's got. In Houma, two-time world arm wrestling champion R.J. Molinere and his son R.J. are back. This season he's taken on 500 tags, more than anyone else, with one goal in mind...to prove that he's the king of the swamp. Swamp legend Bruce Mitchell is gearing up with plans of his own. He's got a new secret weapon, former military sharpshooter Ron Methvin.
Gator Gold Rush
Premiere Date: 02/09/2012
It's day one of the thirty-day alligator-hunting season in Louisiana. This year prices are 30% higher, and with big bucks on the line, a Gator Gold rush is about to begin. Troy Landry has a plan to cash in; reuniting with 20-year partner Clint and running a second boat with son Jacob at the helm. With 430 tags, more than ever before, he's determined to retain his crown. Down in Pecan Island, Troy's helper from last year, Liz Cavalier, is running her own boat this season with 260 tags of her own. Joining her is helper Kristi Broussard, a born and bred Cajun woman who's eager to show what she's got. In Houma, two-time world arm wrestling champion R.J. Molinere and his son R.J. are back. This season he's taken on 500 tags, more than anyone else, with one goal in mind...to prove that he's the king of the swamp. Swamp legend Bruce Mitchell is gearing up with plans of his own. He's got a new secret weapon, former military sharpshooter Ron Methvin.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thanksgiving Swamper Style in Bayou
Swampsgiving
Tonight on the History Channel!
Premiere Date: 11/17/2011
Gator season has come and gone, but down in the swamp, life goes on for the beloved gator hunters of Swamp People. SWAMPSGIVING offers viewers a glimpse of the world of the swamp in the off-season--in particular, the varied traditions surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday in the Atchafalaya River basin, and the ways in which all of these born hunters and fishers go about procuring their fish and fowl for the big meal.
Tonight on the History Channel!
Premiere Date: 11/17/2011
Gator season has come and gone, but down in the swamp, life goes on for the beloved gator hunters of Swamp People. SWAMPSGIVING offers viewers a glimpse of the world of the swamp in the off-season--in particular, the varied traditions surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday in the Atchafalaya River basin, and the ways in which all of these born hunters and fishers go about procuring their fish and fowl for the big meal.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
King of the Swamp Troy Landry Coming to Silver Slipper Casino
Live on the coast? Fan of Choot em' and the creator of the catch phrase? Then you shouldn't miss out on meeting the king and his son Jacob. They will be appearing Saturday the 29th, 2011 to draw for the grand prize, a Gator XUV 825i, to be given away in the Slipper’s “Gators Gone Wild” Giveaway. If you would also like to get in on that action its simple, there are 3 ways to win in the Slipper’s “Gators Gone Wild” Giveaway, with 160 winners and over $50,000 in cash & prizes.
Every Friday and Saturday, now through October 28 from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. and on October 29 from 4:30 to 8:00 p.m., members of the Silver Slipper Players Club can play for entries into the grand prize drawing to be held October 29 at 9:00 p.m. Additionally, members can play for a chance to be one of two winners, every ½ hour during those same days and times, who will win a $100 Academy Sports Gift Card or $150 in Free Slot Play and an Official Choot ‘Em T-Shirt. And, all ½ hour winners will receive a special entry into a drawing for a Gator TX to be given away on Saturday, October 29 at 10:00 p.m., after the grand prize drawing.
Every Friday and Saturday, now through October 28 from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. and on October 29 from 4:30 to 8:00 p.m., members of the Silver Slipper Players Club can play for entries into the grand prize drawing to be held October 29 at 9:00 p.m. Additionally, members can play for a chance to be one of two winners, every ½ hour during those same days and times, who will win a $100 Academy Sports Gift Card or $150 in Free Slot Play and an Official Choot ‘Em T-Shirt. And, all ½ hour winners will receive a special entry into a drawing for a Gator TX to be given away on Saturday, October 29 at 10:00 p.m., after the grand prize drawing.
Junior and Willie are coming to Biloxi, MS!
If you live on the coast or nearby and this Saturday is open you should head on out to Edgewater Mall October 21st,2011 from 10:00 AM to 3:00PM. Junior and Willie Edwards will be making an appearance to meet and greet all of their fans. They will be appearing in front of J.C. Penney's from 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM. Come get an autograph from the alligator hunting stars!
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
How Much Do the Hunters Make?
This seems to be a wildly asked question since the show first aired. So how much will an alligator bring in? Anyone who watches Swamp People knows that alligator hunters care about how much money they make and how fast they can tag out. Sure, they hunt for their love of the land, but they do it for their living, too and I am pretty confident in saying that if they weren't getting paid for it, they more than likely wouldn't do it. With the exception of the easy going Guist brothers, the hunters featured on the show are quick to talk about what makes the difference between a profit and a loss during the one-month alligator season in Louisiana. As the show’s narrator often reminds us, many of these men make half their income for the year from the alligators we see them catch on the show, each one of those tags accounts for a paycheck and each one of the alligators is only worth as much as the weight and the size and quality of the skin. We hear about tags and maps and the quality of an alligator’s skin, as well as the all important question of its size. So how much are these guys really making?
Well its a bit complicated. As it turns out, the Alligator business is pretty volatile. The market fluctuates wildly, and the alligator hunters’ fortunes come and go with it, if they’re not careful. The Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council has all the information (and more!) that you would ever want to know about how to lawfully hunt wild alligators in Louisiana and sell their hides and meat for a profit, but they tell a little bit sweeter of a story about the industry. According to their site, alligator hunting has become steadily more profitable over the years. While skins went for $6/foot in the 1960′s and $9/foot in the early 1980′s, they rose to over $40/foot in the late 1980′s.
What the Louisiana Advisory Council fails to mention is that prices have come down since the late ’80′s, WAY DOWN! One Louisiana newspaper, Vermilion Today, reports that in the 2010 season
“A wild gator that is seven feet or longer sells for around $12 to $15 a foot. A 10-foot gator at $13 per foot will be purchased for $130. When the price was $40 per foot, that same gator was purchased for $400.”
So, according to these estimates, when Troy Landry pulls a 12 foot monster alligator out of the swamp, risking his life and straining his body, he might get up to $180 for a perfect hide. If the gator has lived hard and has the scars to show for it, he’ll get less. And, if there’s a little alligator on his line, he has wasted a precious tag on a hide that won’t bring in enough to cover the cost of catching it.
Hunters can harvest as many alligators as they have alligator tags, but the tags are also regulated and if they don't tag out one year they will lose those tags the following year. So when you hear them being so adamant about tagging out before the end of the alligator season. When you catch a gator, no matter what the size, you have to put one of your tags on it. You can’t cut the little ones loose and save your tags for the big boys. That’s why the hunters get a little disgusted when they put small alligators into the boat; each one takes a tag that could’ve gone on a monster (and earned them a lot more money).
Alligator tags don’t cost anything if you own your own hunting grounds. All you have to do is prove ownership of a piece of land deemed sufficient to sustain alligators, get a $25 Alligator Hunting license, and make an application. The number of tags you’re assigned is based on the size of your land and (if applicable) the number of tags you filled the previous year. So a bad alligator season one year also means fewer tags in the next. Which means a dwindling paycheck for any hunter.
While we’re on the subject of the costs of alligator hunting, don’t forget the equipment, the help you have to hire (or raise), and the time you have to take off of work to be out on the swamp for a month every year. When you add it all up, there’s not much of a margin in Alligator hunting.
But, let’s do the math. The alligator season lasts 30 days, but serious hunters stretch that to 37 days by owning land in both the East and the West regions, since the Western region’s 30 days starts a week later than the Eastern region’s. Troy Landry, who is the big daddy tag-rich King of the Swamp got 320 tags in 2010, but most professional hunters have far fewer. Let’s say our hypothetical hunter has a healthy allotment of 200 tags and property in both regions (for a 37 day season). So, that means, he needs to average 5.5 alligators a day. Let’s also assume that he’s a really skilled hunter and that 1 out every 10 alligators he catches is a 11+ foot monster. Hunting is hunting, though, so we’ll say that 2 out of every 10 is a baby 5-6 footer. Everything else (7 out of 10) is 7-10 feet.
Here’s how that would look: 20 monsters, 40 babies, and 140 respectable gators.
Pricing is also tough to estimate, but I’ll go out on a limb and take an educated guess. The average price for a respectable gator in 2010 was $11-$12 per foot, but monster gators went for $15/foot or more and babies went for a touch less, say $9/foot. So, more math . . .
20 monsters @ 11 feet each x $15/foot=$3300
40 babies @ 6 feet each x $9/foot=$2160
140 respectable gators @ 8 feet each x $12/foot=$13440
That’s a grand total of $18,900. Which isn't too shabby for a month on a boat in the Swamp Lands of Louisiana.
This is the profit off the hides, alone. Besides frying up into a nice dinner, the meat has some value that could also be added to the alligator hunters’ profits. And, of course, the more big gators you get, the more this total goes up. On the other hand, you have to pay for all your equipment and all your help out of this total. I’m guessing you have to pay normal income taxes, too.
The swampers shown are incredibly tough men (and a woman or two) throwing themselves at an incomprehensibly hostile world and wrestling with it until it gives them a living. But the more you watch, the more the similarities evaporate. Alligator hunters,have to either have some other gig or have to live very simply in order to stay in the hunt. RJ Molinere fishes for shrimp and hunts for every sort of game that will turn a profit that lives on his family’s 500 acres. The Landrys own a gas station and buy crawfish from local fisherman. The Guists? Well, they go the “live simply” route and seem to really enjoy their way of life.
I am pretty sure however they are getting a nice cut from whatever History Channel is paying for their appearance on the show.
Well its a bit complicated. As it turns out, the Alligator business is pretty volatile. The market fluctuates wildly, and the alligator hunters’ fortunes come and go with it, if they’re not careful. The Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council has all the information (and more!) that you would ever want to know about how to lawfully hunt wild alligators in Louisiana and sell their hides and meat for a profit, but they tell a little bit sweeter of a story about the industry. According to their site, alligator hunting has become steadily more profitable over the years. While skins went for $6/foot in the 1960′s and $9/foot in the early 1980′s, they rose to over $40/foot in the late 1980′s.
What the Louisiana Advisory Council fails to mention is that prices have come down since the late ’80′s, WAY DOWN! One Louisiana newspaper, Vermilion Today, reports that in the 2010 season
“A wild gator that is seven feet or longer sells for around $12 to $15 a foot. A 10-foot gator at $13 per foot will be purchased for $130. When the price was $40 per foot, that same gator was purchased for $400.”
So, according to these estimates, when Troy Landry pulls a 12 foot monster alligator out of the swamp, risking his life and straining his body, he might get up to $180 for a perfect hide. If the gator has lived hard and has the scars to show for it, he’ll get less. And, if there’s a little alligator on his line, he has wasted a precious tag on a hide that won’t bring in enough to cover the cost of catching it.
Hunters can harvest as many alligators as they have alligator tags, but the tags are also regulated and if they don't tag out one year they will lose those tags the following year. So when you hear them being so adamant about tagging out before the end of the alligator season. When you catch a gator, no matter what the size, you have to put one of your tags on it. You can’t cut the little ones loose and save your tags for the big boys. That’s why the hunters get a little disgusted when they put small alligators into the boat; each one takes a tag that could’ve gone on a monster (and earned them a lot more money).
Alligator tags don’t cost anything if you own your own hunting grounds. All you have to do is prove ownership of a piece of land deemed sufficient to sustain alligators, get a $25 Alligator Hunting license, and make an application. The number of tags you’re assigned is based on the size of your land and (if applicable) the number of tags you filled the previous year. So a bad alligator season one year also means fewer tags in the next. Which means a dwindling paycheck for any hunter.
While we’re on the subject of the costs of alligator hunting, don’t forget the equipment, the help you have to hire (or raise), and the time you have to take off of work to be out on the swamp for a month every year. When you add it all up, there’s not much of a margin in Alligator hunting.
But, let’s do the math. The alligator season lasts 30 days, but serious hunters stretch that to 37 days by owning land in both the East and the West regions, since the Western region’s 30 days starts a week later than the Eastern region’s. Troy Landry, who is the big daddy tag-rich King of the Swamp got 320 tags in 2010, but most professional hunters have far fewer. Let’s say our hypothetical hunter has a healthy allotment of 200 tags and property in both regions (for a 37 day season). So, that means, he needs to average 5.5 alligators a day. Let’s also assume that he’s a really skilled hunter and that 1 out every 10 alligators he catches is a 11+ foot monster. Hunting is hunting, though, so we’ll say that 2 out of every 10 is a baby 5-6 footer. Everything else (7 out of 10) is 7-10 feet.
Here’s how that would look: 20 monsters, 40 babies, and 140 respectable gators.
Pricing is also tough to estimate, but I’ll go out on a limb and take an educated guess. The average price for a respectable gator in 2010 was $11-$12 per foot, but monster gators went for $15/foot or more and babies went for a touch less, say $9/foot. So, more math . . .
20 monsters @ 11 feet each x $15/foot=$3300
40 babies @ 6 feet each x $9/foot=$2160
140 respectable gators @ 8 feet each x $12/foot=$13440
That’s a grand total of $18,900. Which isn't too shabby for a month on a boat in the Swamp Lands of Louisiana.
This is the profit off the hides, alone. Besides frying up into a nice dinner, the meat has some value that could also be added to the alligator hunters’ profits. And, of course, the more big gators you get, the more this total goes up. On the other hand, you have to pay for all your equipment and all your help out of this total. I’m guessing you have to pay normal income taxes, too.
The swampers shown are incredibly tough men (and a woman or two) throwing themselves at an incomprehensibly hostile world and wrestling with it until it gives them a living. But the more you watch, the more the similarities evaporate. Alligator hunters,have to either have some other gig or have to live very simply in order to stay in the hunt. RJ Molinere fishes for shrimp and hunts for every sort of game that will turn a profit that lives on his family’s 500 acres. The Landrys own a gas station and buy crawfish from local fisherman. The Guists? Well, they go the “live simply” route and seem to really enjoy their way of life.
I am pretty sure however they are getting a nice cut from whatever History Channel is paying for their appearance on the show.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Production Company behind Swamp People- Original Media
Original Media is the production company behind the genius show Swamp People on History Channel. So When you want to learn more about Swamp People, New seasons, New Swampers, you get it by now,everything Swamp People basically. All you have to do is follow them on Twitter or on FaceBook. Along with my blog and Original Media you are sure to know everything there is to know about Swamp People.
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