contentea creek gator

satguy said:

View attachment 71805 This was on FB. Know a guy that caught one in a trap in Seven Springs about 5 or 6 years ago.

Click to expand...

i didn't hear about the one in SS, how big was he? i really like fishing contentea creek this time of year, never caught any big bass but always catch a ton of 1-2 pounders. not inetersted in gators though.

Not very big I don't think. The guy called the wildlife people to come get him out of the trap. He caught him in the swampy area north end of the bridge.

anywhere in eastern NC there is the possibility of Gators. Seen em in the Neuse and the Pamlico. I don't use stringers anymore because of it. I also had a chum bag ripped off the boat in a back creek near Spring Garden ramp during a catfish tourney several years ago.

i have seen one in new bern several years ago, didn't realize there were so many in the area

they are all around, they won't mess with you much. i did have one near pollocksville that wanted my spook really bad. got him on video pretty good. he got a bit close so i quit casting lol. it was 6-7'. there has been one in a slough near hog island for as long as i can remember, and she is huge. probably in the teens. contentnea is good enough most of the year (50+ fish days) that i wouldn't sweat that gator for a second. but, be very careful around the bank and log jams, as that is the snakiest place i have ever been in my life. most are water snakes but there are quite a few mocassins as well.

There was one in Raleigh last year and rhodes pond in dunn has a population according to the state.

Gators in most eastern NC waters, from the salt in towards Raleigh. No telling where all a gator will pop up. Do not worry about them, usually they will mosey out of the way, leave them alone and vise versa.

A few years ago, there was a gator living in a pond in Saxapahaw which is an hour west of Raleigh. Doubt he got there on his own. Neighbors complained til Wildlife hauled it off.

SnowCamp said:

A few years ago, there was a gator living in a pond in Saxapahaw which is an hour west of Raleigh. Doubt he got there on his own. Neighbors complained til Wildlife hauled it off.

Click to expand...

The pond that is damned and runs down into the river? That would have been news to me and I lived there the past 3 and 1/2 years! I used to jump in and swim there too.

Not sure which pond it was. Think it was north of Saxapahaw across from that housing development. And I'm old, a few years to me could easily be five or six...

They'll take an interest in your topwater plugs, but other than that I've fished around gators all throughout my childhood with my dad and never thought much of them, other than that they are cool. He had a membership inherited from my grandpa at fishing / duck hunting club on lake Ellis Simon smack in the middle of the Croatan Forest near Havelock, and there were tons of gators in there. At night it would sound like a dozen guys all trying to crank up their outboards out on the lake in the distance.

They don't bother you unless you hang something out for them to eat (like a stringer or a chum bag )

Like Sundrop and Scoot said anywhere raleigh east you may find one.....less like around Raleigh but they do show up from time to time.....3 were in the neuse near Milburnie about 20 years ago......they went back to wherever they came from.....more in and around the neuse from smithfield to kinston than most people realize.....they dont stay in the main river usually but in the blackwater creeks and sloughs just off the river..

I saw my 1st gator last year in Brices Creek, off the Trent River. I guessed it was around 7 ft. I've been seeing what I think is the same ~5 footer in another area in that same creek 3 times now. I got a cell phone photo of that one the last time I saw it, but still being unfamiliar with my new phone, it turned out too small for anyone but me to know what it is. I talked to a resident on that creek, and he told me he has seen one as large as 10 foot, but has seen others also.

On the Neuse where that house is on the Island ( upriver from Hatteras a couple of miles) there's a big cove, I saw one of the 3 biggest gators I've ever seen. It was definitely 10'+. I've seen probably close to a hundred over the years, and to me the biggest concentration of them are from the mouth of Black River, to around the Battleship.

Could be more down toward the lower Cape Fear, but I don't fish down that way. Never had any to be aggressive.

BennyB said:

The pond that is damned and runs down into the river? That would have been news to me and I lived there the past 3 and 1/2 years! I used to jump in and swim there too.

Click to expand...

Just searched the net for Saxapahaw and alligator; found two links. It was the spring of 2001...

All this talk about gators is making me crave a big meal of blackened alligator...

Foursum/Jimmy

panfish jack said:

On the Neuse where that house is on the Island ( upriver from Hatteras a couple of miles) there's a big cove, I saw one of the 3 biggest gators I've ever seen. It was definitely 10'+. I've seen probably close to a hundred over the years, and to me the biggest concentration of them are from the mouth of Black River, to around the Battleship.

Could be more down toward the lower Cape Fear, but I don't fish down that way. Never had any to be aggressive.

Click to expand...

that is the momma gator I was referencing above. She has hatched quite a few. It's the first black water cove on the right headed up from hog island slough.

jab0106 said:

that is the momma gator I was referencing above. She has hatched quite a few. It's the first black water cove on the right headed up from hog island slough.

Click to expand...

jab, the hole I saw the huge gator in is on the left, just past that house on the Island.