Massive 920-pound alligator caught in Central Florida: 'We were just in awe'
A Central Florida alligator hunting guide made a catch of a lifetime, bringing in a gator that weighed a whopping 920 pounds and measured 13 feet 3 ¼ inches long, he said.
Kevin Brotz runs Florida Gator Hunting as a guide and charter captain with more two decades of gator hunting experience. As he explained it to USA TODAY, he was out on a fun hunt with two friends when he spotted the beast that would take four hours to capture.
He explained that by Florida state law, you have to "connect" with the alligator before killing it. In other words, they had to get a hook and direct line in it before using a bang stick to shoot it.
They had been hunting the alligator for almost an hour before it surfaced for the first time. It wasn't until then that they knew what they were dealing with.
“We were just in awe," he said. "I've harvested close to 1,0000 gators, this was like nothing I had seen before."
He said that safety was a big concern, as they were fighting with the near half-ton gator in a small boat, even though they usually use bigger boats for guides.
"All he had to do was turn his head and he could get in the boat," he said.
When they finally had the hook and line in him, they had to shoot him five times to kill him.
'A giant dinosaur'
Brotz told WESH 2 in an interview that his hunting buddies Carson Gore and Darren Field were key to making the catch safely.
“I laid down in the front of the boat and said, ‘Alright, I have to lay down until we get back,’ because I thought I was going to die. That thing was huge,” Gore added in the TV interview.
"When we saw this gator, it was way bigger than anything we've ever caught before,” Field told WESH 2. “It was a giant dinosaur. Not every day you get a giant dinosaur in your boat.”
Their catch could be the second-heaviest ever harvested in the state, they said.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website, the Florida state record for alligator length is 14 feet, 3½ inches; the record for weight is 1,043 pounds.
A spokesperson with the FWC confirmed that, per their records, 920 pounds would be the second heaviest alligator on state record. However, the hunters did not certify the measurements with the state before processing it.
Brotz said he killed the gator to maintain the population and uses tags as part of the Statewide Alligator Harvest Program, which allocates quotas to ensure a sustainable resource use. He said that the alligator yielded 130 pounds of meat that he is sharing with friends and family. As for the rest of gator, it will be made into a full body mount for Brotz to hang on his wall.
He said that he has always honored the animals, but this "surreal" experience was "totally humbling."
"I'm thankful we're not really on their menu. At the same time we have to be cautious," Brotz said. "It puts it in perspective."