I guess we fed the gater . . .

The past two couple of evenings Randy has caught a big fish, but he's only out there long enough to catch one a night, and one or two fish don't make a great meal. So he put them in the fish basket and hung it off the dock, where they can live just fine for a couple of days until he catches the rest of the meal. This is standard practice back in Illinois. However....this morning he pulled up the fish basket line, and all there was at the end of it was this:

We know there is an alligator nearby because we have heard him.  I think he might spend time under the dock right from us. There are some water plants growing under there, and I suppose he could hide in them. But I can never see him, even with binoculars, so maybe he's somewhere else.

We didn't think about him getting the fish because not only does he not come near us, he doesn't even show himself. But I guess in the night he decided to go for it. He probably thought "if they aren't going to eat that, I will!".  My first thought was that I hope he didn't eat the whole basket. My second one was "Wow, is he big enough to eat the whole basket?" Either way, we won't do that again.

The water is so beautiful today!

And tonight Pete drove us to Venetian Gardens park to watch fireworks. We got there early and picked a spot without knowing the area, and got a perfect spot!