On a rainy opening day of the 2024 alligator season in Mississippi, a team of six hunters set out on the Yazoo River with high hopes.
Then, they reeled in one of the biggest gators caught in the state — a 14-foot, 802-pound alligator estimated to be over 60 years old, according to official measurements by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.
“We are still over the moon with this fairy tale hunt,” said hunter Megan Sasser in a social media post.
Brandi Robinson, another member of the group, said on Facebook that she hadn’t initially planned to be out on the water that day.
“The captain just had a feeling we were gonna get our tag on day one,” she said.
Catching the gator
Not only did the team have a few gators trick them, the group also sat through hours of harsh rain, Robinson said.
When the rain cleared, Robinson said one of the other hunters saw something in the distance, about 250 yards away from their boat.
“Everyone’s binoculars were immediately glued! It was a big one and we all knew that,” she said.
As the team’s boat approached the gator, it sank back into the water. The hunters waited about 45 minutes until the alligator popped its head back up and wrangled it for about an hour before tagging out, Robinson said.
“That ol’ dinosaur gave us the ride and fight of our life,” she said.
Sasser said the process crunched two polls and scattered everything in the boat. After about 20 minutes of loading the alligator into the boat, the team took it to Red Antler, a local meat processing company that harvested the state’s record long alligator in 2023.
“In the last five years, we here at Red Antler have processed probably about 3,000 alligators, and we have only got two that were over the 14-foot in length measurement,” Shane Smith, owner of Red Antler Processing, told McClatchy News.
He said the team of six hunters had the meat processed, kept some of it and donated the rest to Hunter’s Harvest, a nonprofit organization that gives hunted and harvested meat to local families in need.
Smith said alligators that size typically yield up to 200 pounds of meat. This year, he’s noticed a lot of hunters donating the game they catch, he said.
The team of hunters are also having the hide tanned and the head taxed to display in their home, he said.
Alligator hunting in Mississippi
In Mississippi, the public and private alligator hunting season began Friday, Aug. 30, according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. Public water season closes at 12 p.m. on Sept. 9, and private lands season closes at 6 a.m. on Sept. 23.
According to Smith, the state started the program to control the rapidly growing alligator population in Mississippi. However, the state only gives out a certain number of tags each year, he said.
“It’s kind of like winning the alligator hunting lottery,” he said. “People get very excited about it.”
But it’s more than just hunting, Smith said.
“You get to spend time with your friends, your family out there on the water, enjoying time together,” he said.
