Dude! Down by the boat launch!

Was eatin' some catfish strips down by the Mississippi, which is way high, when I noticed somethin' floatin' in a big eddy behind the line of trees that normally make up the riverbank.
Was on my way to take a photo of a passing train when a dude whistled me over.
The "log" had lowered itself in the water so that now only its "head" was visible.
I got a photo of that head. He showed me his photo of "the log".
He said he thought it was 12 feet long.
Dang!
That's a pretty big alligator
Esp for a river that doesn't normally have alligators (usually they are in the stagnant, warmer backwaters, which are flooded right now; what with all the snowmelt and heavy rain upstream)

And the kick of it was
The gator was less than 100 feet from the public boat launch.
And there were little kids runnin' on the "riverwalk", not 30 feet from the (new, temporary) "shore".

"Yeah, go ahead Bill; just walk in the water there and help me get this boat up on the launch, will ya?"

Youch!

If you blow up my photo of the head of that "log" you can clearly see its eye, starin' at ... you.
(Hope to get it uploaded, tonight, in the tent.)