(VitalNews.org) – An alligator weighing a whopping 802.5 lbs. has been recorded as Mississippi’s largest ever alligator catch after a 4-man hunting expedition spent 7 hours struggling with the massive creature in the Yazoo river. One of the hunters, Dan Woods, told reporters that the alligator managed to break most of their reels and rods by the time they finally subdued him.
The men repeatedly caught the animal on their line, only for it to manage to break away. Woods added that he was surprised that it never swam far away from the hunters, but instead would briefly hide from them under logs before re-appearing close by. These encounters began at 9pm on the night of Saturday, August 26, and continued until 4am on the following Sunday morning when the beast finally tired and was overcome by the hunting expedition.
Woods added that all four of the men on the boat were exhausted by the time they finally reeled in the 14-foot-3-inches reptile, but they were able to keep going thanks to adrenaline. They knew they had caught a large creature but were ultimately shocked when they managed to haul it back to land and see how huge it really was. Public alligator hunting is permitted in the region from August 24 to September 4 as part of an effort to keep the population down, although anybody who wishes to hunt the creatures requires a permit, of which only 920 are released each season by the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. This periodic hunting appears to have allowed the alligator population to remain stable in the area.
Woods and his fellow hunters all have extensive experience in hunting alligators, and the group had dealt with many 8-foot or 10-foot-long creatures on previous hunting trips. Despite this experience, nothing they had previously killed compared to this record-breaking behemoth. The previous record holder in Mississippi was an alligator that measured 14-foot in length and an impressive 766.5 lbs. in weight, which was captured in 2017.
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