Swamp People star and master alligator hunter Troy Landry is the head of the Landry Clan in Southern Louisiana, and is also known as The King of the Swamp.
For one month out of the year in the bayous of Louisiana, it is legal to hunt alligators. During this month, the Swamp People cameras follow Troy and other gator hunters around as they try and catch as many alligators as they can.
But what else does he do, and what’s his backstory? Turns out he has a lot of other strings to his bow.
Troy told Wide Open Spaces in 2014 that outside of hunting season he makes more than 200 appearances at trade shows. And as the History series has not only been a massive hit in the US, but also internationally, he regularly meets fans from across the world at these events.
Because you can only catch alligators for one month out of the year, Troy also started a commercial seafood catching business in 1992, which brings in approximately 5-6million pounds of crawfish every year.
However, Landry says he often makes more catching gators for 30 days than in nine months of crawfishing.
Because of the show’s success, Landry told Louisiana Travel: “The demand for alligator meat has almost doubled since the show came out.”
Before the wild popularity of the show, Troy and his wife Bernita (who is a school teacher), lived in a trailer for three decades.
They saved up every bit of money they could, along with every piece of cypress wood that they found. Once they had enough money and cypress, they were able to build their dream house.
Now they are able to live surrounded by the beautiful swamp of Louisiana, as they always dreamed.
When hunting, in early seasons Troy would always wears his favorite shirt — a striped polo — and credited it as being one of the reasons that he was able to catch all the big gators.
Since Season 7, though, he’s got a new blue one that has taken its place.
Alligators have both red and white meat that you can use for cooking. Troy says his favorite way to eat gator is to either grill it, or make it into stew. Pro tip: White meat is for grilling and red meat is for stew.
The Landry clan has a website named after Troy’s favorite catchphrase: “‘Choot ‘em!” which has lots of information about Landry and his family.
He also posts regularly on his Facebook, where he has more than 1.3million followers. Also check out his Instagram for pictures of him and…gators!
Troy’s sons Jacob and Chase, as well as his nephew Holden, also appear on Swamp People — with Chase captaining his own boat in Season 8 with Holden as his deckhand, while Jacob works as deckhand for Troy.
Swamp People premieres tonight and airs every Thursday at 9/8c on History.
Awesome, I really like this show !!!