BRANDON, Miss.–Another gator record for Mississippi was broken twice this weekend. The latest record was a 13 ft., 5 inch, 792 lb. monster that was caught in southwest Mississippi in a feeder creek off the Mississippi River. The record is for weight. For length, that gator is still two inches shy.
Brian Montgomery was the hunter who led that party, and Scott Berry was part of the group. Berry had been with the party that caught and killed the previous record-setter the night before.
Montgomery described the way they caught the gator on The JT Show.
“We ran into him about midnight. We had to hang out a while until we could hook onto him. Man, once we hooked onto him, the fight was on,” said Montgomery.
He said the fight was about an hour long and eventually the gator tiered out and they pulled him in their 16 ft. boat.
One of the most amazing parts of the story is the rig used to hook the gator.
“”We hooked into him with like a deep-sea reel with braided fishing line and a big treble hook on it. Next thing you know we had the other poles hooked into him. He broke off three different times and we had only one hook in him. Once he has only one hook in, it’s pretty nerve wracking.”
Montgomery said it was 100 lb. test line.
Ricky Flynt, gator guru with the Miss. Dept. of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, said when you catch a gator that way, you’re basically snagging it.
“You’re casting the hook beyond the alligator and reeling it up to the point where it gets the hook in the skin, hopefully near the front of the gator.”
He said after a while the gator will tire out and then you get him on land, where according to Mississippi gator hunting law, you “dispatch” the animal with a shotgun.
The publica alligator hunting season ends Sept. 5. In Mississippi permits are issued by lottery.
