Alligator season opened at noon on August 30, 2019 in Mississippi, and one pair of hunters didn’t have to wait long for their first catch. Much to their surprise, that first catch could potentially break the state record!
According to Derrick Saucier of Pascagoula and Jarrod Davis of Hurley, the monster gator has been eluding hunters for a long time.
“He was a nuisance. He’d eaten a few pets. One of the trappers hooked him a month ago. I could still see the scar on him where the hook came out. People had been chasing him for years,” Saucier said.
Saucier and Davis put their boat in Mary Walker Bayou shortly before the season officially started. It didn’t take long for them to spot the large gator. They patiently watched it while waiting for the clock to strike noon. Within minutes, the pair hooked the 13-foot, 6-inch alligator. They fought the gator for an hour and a half before getting it onto their boat, but not without the help of a forklift.
“He freaked out and dragged us across the bayou back and forth and almost jerked me out of the boat three times,” Davis said. “We tried to get him in the boat with four men and couldn’t do it,” Davis said. “Finally we gave up and decided to pull him on the bank. It took six men. With all that weight on one side the boat was trying to sink, so we had to give up. When you have that problem it’s a real good problem.”
When they caught it, the gator’s measurements indicated that it might have broken the state record for heaviest male alligator taken in public waters. The current record is 822 pounds, and that alligator was 13 feet, ½ inch long with a 65-inch girth and 48-inch tail base. Saucier and Davis’ gator measured 13 feet, 6 inches long with a 72-inch girth and 48-inch tail base.