727-Pound Alligator Caught An Hour After 723.5-Pound Alligator in Mississippi [VIDEO]
A group of hunters got a record-breaking catch over the weekend. They caught a whopping 727-pound alligator. This came just an hour after another group caught a 723.5-pound alligator.
The Mississippi alligator hunting season has started off with a hit according to state Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks officials. The record was broken twice in a day. When a group in Madison caught a 723.5-pound alligator, they broke the record by 26 pounds, MSNewsNow.com reports.
Beth Trammell and her team of six people spent two hours trying to wrestle the 13-foot 5.5-inch alligator into their boat. Their struggle led to a new record but it didn't last long as it was broken just an hour later as Dustin Bockman of Vicksburg caught an even bigger 727-pound alligator.
Bockman, along with two partners, caught the 13-foot 4.5-inch alligator after shooting it with a crossbow on the Mississippi River.
"He broke all the lines we could put in him. Finally put a snare on him and got him up high enough and put a shot on him. All in all probably took us four and a half hours to catch him from the first time we saw him," Bockman told MSNewsNow.com.
It took Bockman, his brother, Ryan Bockman, and friend, Cole Landers, four hours to try to get the gator into the boat. They eventually gave up and decided to mount the monster's head on a sandbar.
"We pulled his head up on the bank far enough he wouldn't float away," Bockman told the Hattiesburg American. "He was so heavy he wasn't going anywhere."
The alligator caught by Bockman and his team now holds the current weight record for an alligator taken in alligator hunting season by a Mississippi hunter.
Neither alligator broke the length record in Mississippi. The current record stands at 13 feet 6.5 inches. The animal was caught on the Pascagoula River in 2008.