I forgot to mention, but the first and only alligator I have ever seen in the wild was in one of the back sloughs on the tract we had leased. He was laying on top of the water and looked just like a huge log. When I made good eye contact with him and realized what he was, he very slowly sank into the water and was gone. I promptly turned and trotted back to higher ground and called it an evening. This was the first time I was ever eye to eye with something big enough to kill me in the wild.