Looking for some help/tips. Our group drew our first tag this year, and we were able to go last night for the first time. We’ve been scouting and have located a few good gators over the week. Here are some things we noticed-

Pressure. We tried 3-4 locations last night that all held multiple gators, and we knew where a couple shooters were. however, even being completely quiet and even using the wind to drift to them instead of trolling motor, we struggled to get within 50 yards of the bigger ones. We tried everything from keeping the lights on them the entire time, to going dark as soon as we spotted them and lighting them up when we got close, using white or yellow lights, None of it made much difference. Definitely seemed like these were pressured gators and knew the deal. I’m sure they’ve seen dozens of ppl like us who have no clue what they are doing.

No disturbance after they submerged- even in shallow (sub 3ft) areas, once they went under we rarely saw any mud/bubbles from where they moved. Maybe we weren’t patient enough, or were smaller than we thought, we really struggled to locate them when they went under. We’d wait and they would usually pop up within 30-50 yards of us, but never let us get closer.

We’re going to try some areas further away from any boat ramps tonight to see if we can find some less pressure, but any tips/ideas would be great.