It is alligator hunting season here in Florida with this year’s season running through November 1st. If you’ve never eaten Gator Tail all you need to know is that it’s considered a Southern cuisine delicacy. And just like every other type of hunting, hunters go after alligators throughout the South as a matter of sport/game/prize hunting.
A trio of hunters just landed the largest gator in years, and the biggest alligator so far in 2017, after bagging a 13-foot alligator which bottomed out the scale when they went to weigh the reptilian dinosaur. The scale’s capacity was up to 650 pounds, and the 13-foot alligator promptly bottomed the scale out when South Florida hunters Chris Bishop, Hal Camp Jr., and Shane Milstead went to weigh their prized catch.
Ed Killer (yes, that’s his real name and it’s PERFECT for someone writing about alligator hunting) over at TC Palm was first to this story, and he spoke with the hunters about the largest alligator caught since 2013 when a 14-foot-1-inch gator was captured in Lake Talquin.
GOOD GOD. https://t.co/vz1TzSKLjZ pic.twitter.com/SVHqmRUgAA
— Maureen Kenyon 🦄 (@_MaureenKenyon_) August 30, 2017
The three men caught this 13-foot alligator estimated to weigh 750-pounds while fishing inside of an 18-foot fiberglass Pathfinder bay boat. They were fishing on the Kissimmee River. As noted on TCPalm, the men have 10 years of gator hunting together but this was the first year they scored an alligator hunting permit for the Kissimmee River.
The story of how they caught this alligator is a ‘fishing story’ for the ages. If you want to read some craziness then I highly suggest clicking here to read the full account on TCPalm. Some highlights include fishing with the same spinning rod used to catch snook and cobia, gaffs, and harpoons.