I grew up in Louisiana and we used to catch gators for fun. Usually happened when we were out in the marsh at night looking for frogs (froglegs=yummy!). You'd shine the light and see some red eyes; if the eyes were farther than a few inches apart, steer clear, 'cause it's a big'un, but if there were two little eyes together, it was a baby gator. If you kept the light in their eyes, you could usually idle the boat right up to them and grab 'em out of the water. We'd usually just grab 'em and let 'em go, but a buddy would sometimes keep a few that he'd put in his baby pool. We grabbed gators up to about 4.5' like that; a 4 foot gator really isn't that big, mostly tail, just have to watch out for the tail slap and teeth. One night a buddy got bitten by a 4' gator - about 10 little punctures in his forearm from where it grabbed him and let go. Within about 5 minutes, his forearm got so swollen, he looked like freakin' Popeye. Tetanus shot fixed him right up...
Ok, guess I've rambled enough...
Scott
PS - gator meat is good eating! Tastes like chicken!