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‘Swamp People’ Season Finale: Alligator Hunters Scramble To Tag Out

By Charlinda Robinson
Published on: 11:47 PST, May 2, 2016

Most of the Swamp People teams started out slowly and have had to really push hard to fulfill their quota of gators this season. With only one day left, several of the Swamp People hunters will find themselves in the position of not tagging out for the first time ever.

The Swamp People page on the History website shared that as the Landry family races to tag out on the last day of the season, they will discover that they have company. In an attempt to tag out themselves, R.J. and Jay Paul Molinere decide the stakes are high enough that they dare to gamble fishing in the Landry’s territory.

Daniel, Joey, and Dorien Edgar are newcomers to the Swamp People series, and they are in the same boat, so to speak. At the beginning of Swamp People’s current season, the Edgar family stepped up and helped Troy Landry and his family catch several gators, and now it looks as though it is time for the Landry’s to repay that favor.

Overall, this has been a tough season for most of the Swamp People teams. Gators just weren’t biting, and then most of the ones that were eventually caught were on the small side. The season has picked up with quite a few gators weighing several hundred pounds being caught, but it may be too late to pick up the slack in time.

For those unfamiliar with Swamp People, alligator season begins in Louisiana on the first Wednesday of September and runs for 30 days. Hunters such as the Landry and Molinere families are continuing to follow an ancient and honored tradition that goes back about 300 years. These Swamp People families know the bayous and swamps like the back of their hand and know where to find the biggest and baddest gators.

The Swamp People teams bait and set up lines that they hope are attractive enough to alligators that they will attempt to eat the bait and will usually end up getting hooked. When the Swamp People teams check or run the lines and find they’ve snagged an alligator, one person usually hauls the beast up while the other one tries to shoot the gator, aiming for a small kill-zone area on the back of the head. The Swamp People teams are only allowed to hunt during the day, so when the sun begins to set, they know it’s time to stop and turn in their catch of the day.

The Swamp People hunters are issued a set amount of tags, and a tag is placed in a slit made in the tail of each alligator caught. Once the Swamp People teams run out of tags and “tag out,” then their hunting season is over and they are not allowed to kill any more gators until the new season gears up the following year. Alligator hunting can be a lucrative venture, many of the Swamp People teams hope to earn most of their annual income by bringing in enough of the beasts within the strict, 30-day time frame.

Due to lagging ratings over the course of several seasons, this was supposed to be the last season for Swamp People. Ratings have increased enough during the show’s seventh season that it was recently announced on Swamp People’s various social media sites, including a Facebook post and video, that there will be another season. Although fans were angry that several familiar teams, including fan favorite Liz Choate and her family, weren’t brought back for the current seventh season, most seem happy that the series has been renewed.

Are you a fan of the show? Are you pleased that Swamp People will be returning for an eighth season? Leave your comments, thoughts, and opinions below. The Swamp People season finale airs on Monday, May 2 at 9 p.m. ET on the History channel.

[Image via Swamp People on History/Facebook]

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