Two Florida Men Catch 13-Foot, 765-Pound Alligator With Their Bare Hands, Name Him Lumpy

Two Jacksonville area men are making headlines after they wrassled up a 765-pound alligator named Lumpy, using only their hands, rope, and a few hooks.

Measuring 13-foot 4-inches, Lumpy is quite the specimen to behold. Typically any alligator over 8 or 9 feet is going to turn some heads, tack on additional 5-6 feet to that and you’ve got a pretty big story on your hands.

From the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

“He got close enough to where I guess he couldn’t withstand the bait. Finally, it was just his night,” Keith Kelley said.

For the past several months, Keith Kelley and Kelly Sziy have been scouting that particular gator — who they nicknamed “Lumpy.”

They caught him off guard shortly after sunrise in only 4 to 5 feet of St. Johns River water, near Jacksonville. Even more surprising — the pair had just a rope, a few hooks and their strength.
“Put some leather gloves on and I told Kelly: we’re going to have to get him by hand and that’s all it is to it. Hang on,” Kelly continued.

Four hours later, “Lumpy” was brought in and weighed. He was so heavy, he broke the scale. Specialists at the Alligator Farm say they don’t see those kinds of catches very often.
“Usually when people say they’ve seen a large alligator, it’s usually around 11 feet or so. So, 13 feet, close to 13 1/2 feet is definitely rare,” Jim Barlington, curator of reptiles, said.

Lumpy’s carcass then went on to be processed into gator meat, and Florida Fish and Wildlife is currently looking in to whether or not this is the largest gator in state history to be taken by hand (no use of rifle).

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