Iguanacicles: Taking Advantage of Frozen Iguanas

I haven’t been able to go south for invasives for a few months now, so I’m excited to be heading down for a long weekend coming up. Luckily for me, my trip is timed right, to take advantage of this cold front coming in. With the low temperatures across southern Florida, I expect to clean up as the normally nocturnal pythons are making daytime appearances to sun themselves. But, iguanas may be my primary target this go around.
Once the temperatures drop low enough, around 40⁰ and lower, iguanas go into a comatose stage and just fall over. That makes it easy to just ride around picking them up. It’s pretty cool to watch them falling out of the trees too. Once they freeze up, they lose their grip on the limbs and the slightest breeze can cause them to come crashing down from their arboreal perch.

You just have to remember, that even though they appear to be dead, they surely are not. One fellow, a few years ago, rode around picking them up, filling the back seat of his Corolla. Upon getting back on the road with the heater on blast, the thawed iggies awakened and went berserk, causing him to lose control and crash into a telephone pole.

The only safe and lawful way to collect them, is to euthanize the critters as soon as you pick them up. I prefer to pitch the brain with my pocket knife, but I’ve seen several Iggy-hunters, each with their own methods of ensuring their catch never wakes up. I prefer to keep it simple by pitching the brain, which allows me to preserve the skins.

Iguana skin is becoming more and more in demand across South Florida as many leather shops depend on them, as well as the skins of the Burmese pythons, to create some beautiful works of art. Their leather is priced for wallets, purses, wrist cuffs and any number of small leather crafts.
Despite the value in the leather, they provide some mighty fine dining! “Chicken of the tree” is what many South Floridians refer to them as. I like to jokingly tell folks that they provide the best chicken wings you’ll ever put on your grill. Iguanas are super lean, yet very meaty with a taste nearly the same as white meat chicken and easily adaptable to any recipe you would include their feathered cousins in. Now, y’all can take my word for it, or you’re welcome to join me some time to harvest your own lizards. From the very first fork-full, I know you’ll be hooked.
As always, if you have any questions or comments about this week’s article, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. God Bless, and good hunting!

Toby Benoit is a best selling novelist and professional outdoors-man with thirty-five years of experience guiding and outfitting for big game all across America. Toby is a renowned archer and turkey hunting expert who manufactures custom game calls and is a regular judge at NWTF sanctioned turkey calling events across the Southeast.