Gator Aid

Clearly, Vernon has heard his brother's war stories. Three years ago at a Brazoria County machine shop, Janik jumped on the back of a ten-foot alligator and grabbed its mouth. It rolled over and nearly knocked him out. A year later, Janik tried to flush an alligator out of a storm drain by pushing it with a circular piece of metal grate fencing. The animal charged over the grate and bit off a slice of his finger. He once lassoed a 13-foot alligator as wide as a 59-gallon drum, alive: "I will never, ever do it like that again," he admits, "because it's just too damn dangerous."

Janik's newest challenge was one of his most vexing. A landowner had drained a pond, revealing an alligator nest in the middle of the muck, guarded by an eight-foot harridan. Janik couldn't drive his truck through the deep mud, nor could he entice the alligator out of its hole from a distance. Instead, he was planning to walk across the slippery gumbo, stand on top of the gator hole and pound on it until the alligator came charging out, at which point he would take quick aim. But shooting it could easily go wrong. "I've seen a .22 bullet bounce off of one's nose," Cerrone says. Even a blast to the skull will often fail; stopping an alligator in its tracks requires targeting its tiny brain, hitting the charging beast with a shot placed just behind the eyes.

Leaving this kind of job to amateurs is a bit too sporting even for a sportsman. "When you allow people here in Texas to shoot alligators in open water," Janik says, "you are going to get a lot of fatalities."

And not all of those, he suggests, will be handled by the local taxidermist.

Backbiting

A tag team of pit bulls takes on a gator

Many face-offs between dogs and alligators end about as fast as you can say gulp. But sometimes the dogs bite back.

Last year, Rhee Hubbard found an alligator on her driveway facing down her two barking pit bulls, Patches and Jaws. The three-and-a-half-foot reptile bit off a chunk of Jaws's ear. Patches clamped its neck. "I mean, she latched on," Hubbard says.

The alligator pulled Patches 75 feet down a San Jacinto County dirt road and into a drainage ditch. Patches yanked it back. All the while, Jaws struggled to hold its tail, stripping off snatches of hide whenever he was whipped off. The battle raged for 20 minutes.

Snorting, squirming and leaching blood, the alligator eventually was crushed by Patches' vice grip.

"She's powerful," Hubbard says. "She's a muscle dog." -- Josh Harkinson

Gator Gotcha?

Dos and don'ts from those who should know

Is there an alligator in your bathtub? Call animal control. For those less intimate situations, here's the best advice from the experts.

• Alligators are generally afraid of humans and will not attack unless provoked.

• Just because you see an alligator in your yard doesn't mean it's a problem. It's probably just passing through on the way to a better habitat.

• Alligators often sun themselves with their mouths open. They are not hunting. Their open mouths regulate their body temperatures.

• Don't feed alligators. It's against the law in Texas. Alligators lose their natural fear of people when they associate them with food.

• Don't let pets swim or run along the shoreline of waters known to contain large alligators. Alligators are most likely attracted to dogs because they are roughly the same size as alligators' natural prey.

• Fence your waterfront property. Fencing helps protect children and pets.

• Keeping an alligator as a pet is illegal.

• Don't swim in areas where vegetation such as reeds is poking out of the water. Alligators favor this type of habitat.

• Don't swim at dusk or at night in areas known to contain large alligators. They feed most actively during the evening hours.

• If you hear an alligator hiss, it is a warning that you are too close.

• It is common for alligators to pursue top-water fishing lures. This does not constitute a threat to humans.

• If you have any questions about whether an alligator's behavior indicates aggression, contact your regional office of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. -- Josh Harkinson

Tourist Gold

Gator Country is packing them in with 125 live gators, Cajun music and a hillbilly show

Gary Saurage is demonstrating what never, ever to do at home. Grabbing a long plastic pole, he slaps the surface of a pond. Two saffron eyes appear, move toward him and dip beneath the surface. "Get ready," he says. The water breaks and a 13-foot alligator charges onto the bank. Saurage holds his ground. He reaches out his hand and smacks the beast on the nose. It opens its jaws and lets out a flapping belch. Satisfied, Saurage tosses in a leg of chicken. The mouth shuts with an echoing clap.

"That's Big Al," he says.