This Opening Day Alligator Is One of the Largest Ever Killed in Mississippi

Mississippi’s short, 10-day alligator season began Friday afternoon. At 12:05 p.m., Megan Sasser and her crew of five launched their 21-foot War Eagle skiff into the Yazoo River near Vicksburg. The six hunters, who call themselves the Gator Getters, headed downriver for a short distance, where they warmed up by catching and releasing a few smaller alligators. Then came the storm.

For the next few hours, as lightning flashed overhead and rain pelted the river, the hunters crouched patiently beneath their rain gear. Other hunters might have cursed the bad weather, but Sasser’s team, which included her parents and three friends, took it as a good omen.

“We were sitting outside in the heavy rain and lightning, just waiting, because we know after the rain, alligators tend to come up,” Sasser said. Outdoor living.

Sure enough, as the monsoon turned to a drizzle, one of the hunters looked about 300 yards down the Yazoo and saw what looked like the head of a giant alligator. They slowly descended, thinking it might just be a big log, and then the head disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

“Alligators can stay underwater for a long time before they have to come up for air. So we dropped anchor and sat there for an hour,” Sasser said. “He finally came up and we got a good look at him and we thought, ‘Well, that’s a pretty good gator.'”

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Another hour passed as the gator made another dive and the hunters repositioned their boat about 40 yards upstream. When the gator surfaced a second time, Sasser’s father, Marty, and her friend Justin Pettway cast two heavy hooks on their spinning rods and hooked it. The hooked gator then dove to the bottom, releasing the drag and pulling the boat in circles as the hunters hung on for the ride.

“When he finally came up, it was my job to get a handline with a little bit of a bigger hook in him. That really pissed him off,” Sasser says. “He probably pulled us 200 yards down the river … And when we finally got a full view of his head, everybody in the boat said, Oh my god.”

Sasser attempted to catch the gator, but its head was too large for the loop and she could only get the cable tight around the top of its mouth. The giant gator then did a death roll, breaking the ends of both rods as it wrapped itself around the lines. After about 10 rolls, the team was able to lift the gator to the surface to finish him off.

The fight was finally over, Sasser says, as all six tried to hoist the gator into the boat, but couldn’t even get its head out of the water. Finally, they tied the gator to the side of the boat and slowly made their way back to the boat ramp, where other hunters were getting ready to launch the boat for the evening.

“By this time it’s starting to get dark and there’s a long line at the boat ramp. And here we come with this huge alligator,” Sasser says. “A couple of guys helped us roll him into the boat and [the gator] located. However, it was so large that we still couldn’t lay it flat to get a good measurement.”

The hunters were only able to take real measurements when they took the alligator with them Processing of red antlers in Yazoo City, where it tipped the scales at 828 pounds — six pounds heavier than the current state record. Sasser contacted the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks that evening, and MDWFP alligator program coordinator Andrew Arnett came by the next morning to take a look.

Sasser says the gator weighed 802 pounds and was 14 feet long, according to Arnett’s measurements. Both measurements are less than the state record. (The current alligator length record in Mississippi is 14 feet, 3 inches, set last year.) Sasser’s gator also missed the state record for girth by just a half inch.

“But that’s OK,” Sasser said. “I mean, we were there, and it’s still a beautiful thing to celebrate. According to MDWFP, there have only been four other alligators killed in the state that are 14 feet or longer. He was number five.”

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Sasser says Arnett also estimates the gator’s age at about 60 years old. She’s having the head mounted and plans to save the hide and all of the meat. But for now, she and the rest of the Gator Getters are focused on harvesting another gator so she can fill her second tag.

“In Mississippi, you’re allowed to kill one small alligator that’s between 4 and 7 feet long, and you’re allowed to kill what we call a ‘large alligator,’ or one that’s over 7 feet,” said Sasser, who drew her tag through a lottery system. About 900 tags are distributed each season to thousands of applicants. “This year has just been a huge blessing for us.”