"We put the boat in at 8
o'clock on Saturday night and we got back to the dock with the alligator
about 9:30 a.m. Sunday," the 27-year-old UPS driver told CNN in a
telephone interview.
It was a long night.
Bockman had been one of
920 people picked from 27,000 applicants to participate in the state's
10-day alligator season. His selection and his $100 license gave him the
right to catch two alligators -- one of any size, and a medium-size
one.
Though they'd never
hunted alligators before, the men were well equipped: a bright light to
illuminate their quarry's eyes, which typically sit just above the
surface of the water, a crossbow attached to a 150-pound fishing line, a
deep-sea fishing pole with a snagging hook, a shotgun, Mountain Dew and
root beer.
During the first few
hours, they saw plenty of alligators, but passed them by. "I wanted to
get an alligator 10 feet or better," he said.
About 1 a.m., they found one that fit the bill. "We didn't realize how big it was, we just knew it was big," he said.
Under the rules of the
lottery, hunters are not allowed to shoot alligators in open water, he
said. "You have to get a line on them."
That wasn't easy. Each
time they approached the alligator, he submerged, only to pop up a few
minutes later dozens of yards away.
Finally, after about two hours, Bockman -- an experienced hunter -- shot him with the crossbow, striking him in the back.
The line was attached to
a homemade buoy -- made with a 3-liter water jug containing bells and
glow sticks "so when it took off you could hear and see it at
nighttime."
A few minutes later,
they got a second line on the gator with the fishing pole, and the
animal took off, sinking to the river bottom and sitting -- for up to 20
minutes at a time -- as the three men tried repeatedly to pull him to
the surface. "It was like trying to pull up a tree."
Finally, another two
hours later, success: "My buddy grabbed the boat fishing line and pulled
him to the top," Bockman said. But by then, the fishing line had caught
around a tree, so they cut it.
That meant their only
connection to the alligator was the buoy line. Another 90 minutes or so
later, they used the buoy line to pull the alligator to the surface and
tried to cover his head with a snare. "It's like a noose -- you put it
around his neck and, when you pull it up, it tightens up."
But the animal's head
was about two feet long and bigger than the snare could accommodate.
"When we pulled it tight, he went to fighting, then broke the bow
fishing line. All we had was the snare," which was not firmly in place.
At that, Bockman stuck
the barrel of his Remington 1100 20-gauge shotgun into the water, aimed
it at the soft spot on the back of the animal's head and pulled the
trigger.
In an instant, the
longtime hunter learned a lesson in physics. "The gun barrel peeled back
like a banana peel," he said. "The gas can't escape at the end of the
barrel (under water). I didn't know that before, but now I do. It was
pretty crazy. I thought they'd gave me the wrong bullets."
It was still useable,
however, and two more shots finished the job, which left them with
another challenge. Knee-deep in mud, the three men tried to load their
catch into the War Eagle boat, but discovered after much pulling and
pushing that they couldn't, so they called for reinforcements.
"We just pulled him over
to a sandbar and waited for daylight so we could call some people to
help us load him." On Sunday morning, two of their friends arrived and
helped them pull the alligator into the boat.
It was only then that they realized they had bagged a big one.
But they had forgotten
to bring a tape measure, so they were reduced to guessing its size. "We
didn't realize until we took him back to my buddy's house and took him
out of the boat with a tractor and put a tape measure on him that we
needed to go get him weighed for a state record," he said.
Here are the official
measurements: 13 feet 4.5 inches long, 727.0 pounds. Its belly girth
measured 67 inches and its tail measured 45.5 inches in girth.
Officials estimated its age at 50 to 60 years.
Culled from CNN
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