Close up of an alligator in the Florida Everglades — Courtesy: Shutterstock — Thierry Eidenweil
A Central Florida alligator hunting guide reportedly caught the gator of a lifetime, which weighed an incredible 920 pounds and was 13 feet long.
With more than 20 years of gator hunting experience, Kevin Brotz runs Florida Gator Hunting as a guide and charter captain. He was out on a fun hunt with two companions when he saw the beast that would require four hours to catch, he told USA TODAY.
He clarified that in order to legally kill an alligator in Florida, you must first “connect” with it. In other words, before shooting it with a bang stick, they had to hook and direct line it.
Before the alligator first surfaced, they had been pursuing it for about an hour. They didn’t understand what they were up against until that point.
“We were just in awe,” he said. “I’ve harvested close to 1,000 gators, this was like nothing I had seen before.”
Even though they generally use bigger boats for guides, he added that safety was a major worry because they were battling the nearly half-ton gator in a small boat.
“All he had to do was turn his head and he could get in the boat,” he said.
It took five shots to kill him after they finally got the hook and line in him.
“A huge dinosaur.”
In an interview with WESH 2, Brotz said that making the catch safely depended on his hunting partners Carson Gore and Darren Field.
“I laid down in the front of the boat and said, ‘Alright, I have to lay down until we get back,’ because I thought I was going to die. That thing was huge,” Gore added in the TV interview.
“When we saw this gator, it was way bigger than anything we’ve ever caught before,” Field told WESH 2. “It was a giant dinosaur. Not every day you get a giant dinosaur in your boat.”
According to them, their capture may be the second-heaviest ever taken in the state.
The state record for both alligator length and weight in Florida is 14 feet for the former, and 1,043 pounds for the latter, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website.
According to the FWC’s statistics, the second heaviest alligator ever recorded in the state weighed 920 pounds, a spokeswoman for the agency verified. Before processing it, the hunters didn’t, however, validate the measures with the state.
In accordance with the Statewide Alligator Harvest Program, which assigns quotas to guarantee sustainable resource usage, Brotz claimed he killed the alligator to maintain the population and used tags. He claimed that the alligator produced 130 pounds of meat, which he is currently sharing with his loved ones. The remainder of the gator will be turned into a full-body mount that Brotz may display on his wall.
He said that he has “always honored the animals, but this surreal experience was totally humbling.”
“I’m thankful we’re not really on their menu. At the same time we have to be cautious,” Brotz said. “It puts it in perspective.”
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Melissa’s career in writing started more than 20 years ago. Today, she lives in South Florida with her husband and two boys.
