A team of Mississippi alligator hunters have put some big gators in their boat before, but nothing like the 800-pound giant they tangled with on the opening day of the season.
“We fought him for at least an hour before we knew how big he was,” said Megan Sasser of Terry. “We knew he was big, but we didn’t know how truly big he was. It was kind of one of those once in a lifetime deals.
“We were like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ The size and mass of his head is unreal. It’s just unreal.”
Sasser, the tag-holder, was hunting in the Yazoo River near Vicksburg. Her hunting party consisted of her mother and father, Marty and Lauren Sasser of Terry, Justin Pettway of Pelahatchie, Connie Flanagin of Terry and Brandi Robinson of Enterprise.
The hunting party got on the water at noon on Friday and the day wasn’t exactly pleasant. Rains soon set in over the area, and the crew was soaking wet from a storm that lasted three hours. But as the rain began to subside later that afternoon, they spotted an alligator that initially appeared to be in the 10-foot to 12-foot range from what they could see of the head.
“You’re going off very little data when he’s in the water,” Sasser said.
Battling a massive alligator
The alligator saw them as well and went down and it didn’t seem he had much interest in seeing them again.
“We sat on him for an hour,” Sasser said. “It was a waiting game.”
Sasser said the team is well-seasoned and they’ve hunted together for 10 years. Everyone was ready when the gator resurfaced. They immediately hooked the alligator.
“The chase was on,” Sasser said. “It was the biggest fight we’ve ever been in.
“You lose track of time. You lose track of everything. You just think, ‘Don’t let go.'”
Her father described it in different terms.
“It was like hooking to a car and throwing it off in the deep ocean and trying to hold it with a reel,” Marty Sasser said. “That’s the kind of force it feels like. We really didn’t realize the gator was as big as he was.”
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MS hunters realize they have a monster alligator
About an hour into the fight, Sasser said they got their first good look at the head and realized why there was such a battle.
“I think when we saw his head, everybody’s jaw dropped,” Sasser said. “That’s when it sank in, ‘Y’all, we’ve got a monster.'”
The hunters were finally able to restrain the alligator and dispatch it, but the battle wasn’t over. Even with six people, they couldn’t get it in the boat. So, they tied it to the boat and made their way back to the boat launch.
When they arrived at got the alligator out of the water, they began to get a better understanding of what they had.
“We’ve gotten several over 12 feet, but we’ve never caught anything of the magnitude of this gator,” Sasser’s father said. “He was just a whole lot bigger.”
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An alligator that dwarfs others
The alligator was taken to Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City. Owner Shane Smith said his business processes around 400 alligators a year, but Sasser’s stands out.
“It’s sitting in a cooler with 50 other alligators and this one just dwarfs them,” Smith said.
The alligator officially weighed 801.5 pounds and was 14 feet long. Although not a state record, it’s among the largest ever caught in the state. Sasser said she was having a hard time believing the size of the animal.
“I still think it’s trying to set in this morning,” Sasser said.
Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi alligator hunters bag 800-pound ‘monster’