Alligator hunting season began earlier this month and already three men are celebrating quite a catch.
“We’ve caught several gators, but this one was one of the biggest fights and the biggest we’ve ever caught,” said John Wayne Caulder in a Facebook post Tuesday.
Caulder says it took his strength and that of his son and a friend Monday night to haul in the 12-foot 8-inch gator that weighed roughly 600 pounds. It also took time, about two and half hours.
“This old boy was built different,” he said.
In fact, the gator was nearly as big as Caulder’s 17-foot boat.
He says the massive alligator dragged his boat about a quarter mile up the Waccamaw River between Georgetown and Myrtle Beach before they could bring it to shore. What’s more, he says a taxidermist found a tooth from another gator embedded in its snout.
This wasn’t the gator’s first battle, but the one it lost.
According to the U.S. National Park Service, adult male alligators can occasionally reach 13 to 15 feet in length. The maximum length for females is about ten feet.
Once listed as a federally endangered species, alligator populations have rebounded across the state, allowing the Department of Natural Resources to institute a hunting season in 2008. This year’s season began Sept. 12 and runs through Oct. 10.