After a hurricane tears through the bayou on opening day of Alligator Season, delaying hunting for five critical days, the swampers turn to family to help make up for lost time. Complicating matters is the arrival of two new hunters who invade the Louisiana swamp from their native Texas and challenge King of the Swamp Troy Landry to a high stakes bet. The shortened season forces everyone to take bigger risks including one hunter who jumps into the water to wrestle a huge live gator that tries to get away.
To win a high stakes bet against two hunters from Texas, Troy must get his sons to step up and help him bring in the biggest gator. Two of his boys head into a remote area and snag a monster with a treble hook only to be dragged around the swamp by the massive gator. Meanwhile, when one hunter'sballoon runs out of bullets, his partner turns to a tiny pocket knife to try and bring down a massive live gator before it attacks the boat.
A fishhug of biblical proportions hits the swamp, causing the gators to stop biting lines, and forcing swampers to get inventive in their hunting strategies.
Tensions rise as a high stakes bet leads to a turf war. Poachers steal gators from several of the hunters. In the aftermath of hurricane Isaac one of the veteran hunters suffers a devastating loss.
Swampers struggle and fill tags after a devastating hurricane. One hunter suffers a brutal alligator bite that forces him off the water for emergency first aid. Meanwhile, a cold front threatens to end the season for hunters in the north. For another pair, debris-filled waters lead to a serious accident.
Hunting in narrow waterways, one swamper gets bumped overboard during a gator fight while another faces the collapse of his entire season if he can't catch his first alligator of the year. And when two hunters head back into dark waters to enact revenge on a gator that got away, they get more than they bargained for.
A severe storm nears southern Louisiana and the hunters are preparing for the worst. Tommy is looking forward to a day off, but Joe is determined to run their lines in any weather. While the rest of the swampers fight to get get to their lines, Junior and Willie are taking theirs down. Junior is on pace to tag out in time, and he doesn't believe that fighting the storm is worth it.
The high stakes bet between the Texans and Troy Landry comes to an amazing conclusion. And while one team takes a huge gamble that could upset their entire season, another faces a serious health crisis.
Nearly two weeks into the toughest season in years, swampers are starting to break down from fatigue and stress. When an impatient veteran sprays his partner with bullet fragments, it could mean the end to their longtime partnership. Recovering from surgery, one swamper risks their health to stay on the water? and brothers nearly come to blows as frustrations build and authority is challenged.
A team of hunters catches a yellow gator which is said to be cursed; one hunter loses his ability to shoot; a dead gator comes back to life; RJ and Jay Paul conduct a native ritual ceremony to rid the swamp of the curse.
Halfway through the toughest alligator season in decades, the battle-weary veterans need their deckhands to step up like never before. In a desperate plea for help, one swamper reaches out to an unlikely family member who is terrified of being in the boat. Another veteran struggles to harness the raw talent of his teenage deckhand–while another team hashes out the value of intuition over discipline.
A massive sinkhole consumes part of Troy Landry's hunting grounds and he and his sons must race to his remaining lines in the same area before they are swallowed up. "The Beast of the East" is chased by swampers using gator calls and while one team comes up with a clever way to extract gators from a huge snarled lily field, another bravely hunts for "The Monster of Monster Marsh" while trying to outrun a deadly lightning storm. The biggest gator of the season so far is caught and wrestled onboard.
With big gators getting harder to catch, the next generation of swampers steps up and helps their families get through some of the deadliest challenges yet. A pair of brothers go on an epic adventure for gators, employing ingenuity and fighting peril while journeying to a land not hunted in forty years. A swamper gets called back to his office job and is determined to make his last day hunting one to remember. A young hunter's risky night scout pays off.
Just as teams have found their rhythm, partnerships are broken up, leaving veteran hunters to overcome the challenges of changing deckhands midstream. A boat captain father breaks up his teammate sons, poaching one for himself and leaving the other with an unlikely deckhand. A veteran swamper takes advantage of their partner's last day on the swamp by revisiting a marsh area that's yielded tremendous gators.
The season's running down and swampers scramble to save a precious day on the water as the worst storm since Hurricane Isaac hammers the gulf coast. One team of swampers start the day fighting the weather and end up fighting each other. Another team's day turns to disaster when a member of the group is the victim of a shocking accident. Veteran gator hunters have to come up with a Plan "B" for bait and a father and son team use their knowledge to make the storm to work for them.
Duck hunters begin to cause chaos for the swampers; a team abandons their boat; a veteran's hunt for a partner leads her to an unexpected door; a teams lines are tampered with.
There's only seven days left in the Louisiana alligator season. And just as new partnerships hit their stride, they begin to fracture again-forcing swampers to doubt their ability to tag out. While one hunter begins to heal, another faces a season ending injury.
With only five days to go in the season, swampers have to repair their pasts with family and friends if they're going to have any chance of tagging out. After weeks apart, a veteran hunting team must learn to work together again while another swamper tries to reconcile with his estranged father by vowing to fill his dad's tags before his own. And when an injury takes down a legendary hunter, his brother is determined to make up for the devastating loss.
As the days tick away, swampers are blind-sided with unexpected road blocks. For one veteran hunter, a family member in trouble means putting his own season on hold, while another agrees to help a neighbor in need ? but it jeopardizes his chances of tagging-out for second year in a row. One team has only two tags left to catch a legendary gator that they have been stalking for 20 years.
With just three days left in the season, a team sets off to find a serial hugger gator named "The Reaper" that has been snatching cattle from ranches in the middle of the night-while another veteran team is plagued by catching alligators so big, they can barely remove them form the swamp. A legendary swamper rallies his family to leave their boats behind and hunt beyond deep in the woods of the bayou.
With only 48 hours left in gator season, and weather threatening, the race is on to tag out. One swamper invents a stout secret weapon, while other teams split up to cover more ground. A veteran hunter pushes through extreme pain, while another completes a personal journey to pay tribute to a fallen family member.
On last day of alligator season, a massive cold front hits the bayou-driving swampers to extreme measures in order to tag out. One hunter is forced to make the risky move of crashing his boat through a beaver dam, while another hunter puts his life on the line to save his beloved partner.