Dustin Brockman of Vicksburg, Miss., ventured with his brother and friend into the Mississippi River by motorboat early Saturday night and emerged with a 727-pound record breaker that was 13 feet, 4.5 inches long.
The previous weight record was 697.5 pounds, according to Ricky Flynt, program coordinator with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks.
“We chased him for about two hours,” Brockman said. “Then we got a shot on him.” Brockman said that it took two hours after hooking the alligator using a crossbow before they could shoot it with a shotgun. ,br>It took four hours more to get it into the boat, but Brockman said it was too heavy to do with just the three of them, so they just waited in the middle of the river for the sun to rise.
“We killed the alligator at 4 a.m.,” he said. “We waited until 6:30 (a.m.) before I called three or four more guys to help us load it into the boat.” And just one hour prior to Brockman’s epic catch, a hunting party led by Beth Trammell of Madison, Miss., hooked a 13-foot, 5.5-inch alligator near Redwood.
The Trammell party, which included six people, broke the previous weight record with their 723.5-pound catch and held the markbefore Brockman broke it 60 minutes later.
“It took about four hours to get it in the boat,” said Trammell. “We had to flag another boat down to help us out it was so big.” Trammell said that when they had the hefty alligator hooked, their poles were bent like “candy canes.”
Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Dustin Bockman of Vicksburg, Miss., and his team pose with the alligator they caught near the Big Black River in Claiborne County. The alligator is 13-feet and 4.5 inches in length and weighs 727 pounds.
The current length record, which has yet to be broken, is 13 feet, 6.5 inches. That alligator was captured on the Pascagoula River in 2008, according to the Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks department.
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