A massive 741-pound alligator broke Mississippi's gator record for the heaviest and longest alligator, just days after previous records were set, Daily Mail reported Tuesday.
The new Mississippi gator record belongs to rookie hunter Dalco Turner of Gluckstadt, who caught a 741-pound alligator over the weekend.
According to unofficial measurements, the alligator was at least 13-feet and 7-inches long, beating the records of Beth Trammel of Madison, who got a 723.5-pound harvest, and Dustin Bockman of Vicksburg, who captured a massive 727-pound reptile.
The Detroit Free Press reported Dalco Turner and members of Team Gatorslayer captured the monstrous beast Sunday morning from a backwater area of the Mississippi River near Port Gibson.
"It was around midnight when we initially saw this one" Mr. Turner told The Clarion-Ledger. "We passed it by the first time. We really didn't think he was big enough to go after."
The excited group of hunters called Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Park's Alligator Program Coordinator Ricky Flynt, and asked him to officially record it.
The massive alligator was then lifted with an excavator and it was found out that the beast weighs 741.5 pounds. Gatorslayers Turner, John Ratcliff of Canton, Jimmy Greer of Canton, and Jennifer Ratcliff of Canton were then awarded by the state of the new record for the heaviest male alligator.
However, when Flynt officially measured the reptile, it came only to 13-feet, 6.5-inches, tying to the previous record holder.
"He broke three lines, and I had the only hook that stayed in him the whole time," Turner said later on, sharing how cumbersome the process of catching the massive beast has been.
The team said that everything went crazy when the big boy started snapping and biting the boat so hard he broke some of his teeth.
Nevertheless, they managed to secure and dispatch the behemoth after an hour, but realized that with only four of them there, it was impossible to lift the alligator into the boat.
"We couldn't even pull him onto the bank," Turner said. "We tried to pull him (ashore) with the boat, we tried everything."
John and Jennifer Ratcliff then decided to ask for assistance, and returned with two additional men to help them realize their big endeavor.
"Even with these two guys, it was very hard, and we were wore out," John Ratcliff said, noting that it still took them about 30 minutes to lift the massive reptile into the boat. "If it wouldn't have been for those two guys, we would have never gotten him in the boat."
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