Along the Chattahoochee River in Muscogee County, Bulldog Bait and Tackle is open 365 days a year.
Marshall Berger runs the counter in the back.
“We have crickets. We have red worms,” are just some of the things Marshall said the store sells.
Mildred Williams bakes biscuits and sells the knick-knacks.
Her husband Ferrell owns the place and over the course of his 92 years, he’s heard it all.
“A lot of people have got stories, and they’re true stories,” Ferrell Williams said.
Some of them are honest-to-goodness nightmares.
“They’re dangerous creatures. They will kill you,” Ferrell Williams said.
Down at the dock, deputies are on the case aboard the sheriff’s patrol boat. Investigator Chris Paniccioli is at the helm. Investigator Russell Sharman is riding shotgun.
The men are trying to track down the growing number of the largest apex predator to ever haunt the waterway — the American alligator.
“I’ve seen an increase in the alligator population on the Chattahoochee in just the two years I’ve been here,” investigator Russell Sharmon said. “At first it was one, two, or three. Now it’s 10, or 12, or 15.”