Mississippi man Stephen Brady was out gator hunting with his buddies Bryan Burnside, Colby Acy, and Anthony Acy, when they managed to harvest a massive alligator that put them in the exclusive 13-foot club.
“We’ve probably caught 10 or 12 over 12 feet,” Stephen Brady of Pelahatchie said, according to the Clarion Ledger. “We had never caught a 13-footer.”
The men, all members of the Muddy Water Maniacs gator hunting party, said they were on the Mississippi River in Natchez while the water was as low as they’ve ever seen when they spotted the apex predator.
Brady said that they normally hunt in oxbow lakes off the river, but when they went there, they found little water and no mature alligators.
“When we got over there the water was down 5 or 6 feet, so all the water was gone,” Brady said. “Where we normally see big gators we saw a bunch of small ones.”
At that point, the group decided to relocate to a better spot and went to a place they had scouted before the season, however, when they shined lights on the water, they didn’t see any alligators in the area.
They turned off their lights and waited for a bit, then turned them back on to see if any gators would pop out but still, no glowing eyes showed themselves. However, Brady did notice something that he thought was a log and decided to investigate.
“I thought it was a log at first,” Brady said, according to the Clarion Ledger. “He was facing away from us. We’ve been doing this a long time, so when we saw him we knew he was a good one. We cut the light off immediately.”
The hunters turned their lights off and grabbed their rods and reels and turned the lights back on, but by that time the gator had already submerged itself into the water.
The men decided to just blind-cast where they last saw the gator until Brady’s hook bumped the gator’s tail and it made him move and come to the surface.
“All three of us cast at him at the same time,” Brady said. “I was the only one to hook him. All three hooks went over him, but mine just happened to land right on the back side of him and I hooked him first. That’s when he went crazy. He took off. He finally stopped and sat on the bottom. He just kind of walked on the bottom and pulled us around like a rag doll.”
The guys eventually got two more hooks in the gator and were able to pull him up to the boat, but the fight was still on.
“He started rolling and splashing and had his mouth open trying to bite the boat,” Brady said. “He just wouldn’t give up.”
Eventually, they were able to get a line on his head and pulled him up far enough then snare the river monster and wrangled him in. The gator officially measured 13 feet, 1 inch, and weighed 635 pounds.
“It was a heck of a time,” Brady said. “It was definitely a group effort. We made our goal. We got a 13-footer, so we’ve caught one of every foot.”