An 800-pound monster was pulled out of the water 16 years later

Thousands of alligators live in Mississippi, but hunters have gotten their hands on the colony’s strongest alligator: a predator measuring 4.3 meters long and more than… 800 pounds!

This is a record according to the state wildlife department.

Tanner White, Don Woods, Joey Clark and Will Thomas captured the beast in the Yazoo River last weekend.

The efforts of the quartet bore fruit on Saturday morning, after seven hours of work from midnight until the early hours of the morning, which led to several fishing ropes being broken and causing some material damage to the boat.

“He dictated everything we had to do. It was stressful, but since the adrenaline was going, you didn’t notice it,” Woods said. To Clarion Ledger Media.

The crocodile is caught by the latter, who was carrying the permit.

Ironically, the swamp giant was caught 16 years ago about thirty kilometers from the hunting site.

Ricky Flint, who was head of the Alligator Wildlife Program in 2007, had placed a metal tag on the reptile, which was then 10 feet long and deemed a “nuisance”.

He invited himself to a private pond behind a condo.

“We borrowed their 10-foot boat to get into the pond because it was surrounded by trees. When we hooked the alligator, we realized it was bigger than we thought,” Flint said.

The fact that the crocodile has undergone a growth spurt since it was first sighted is impressive, as are its movements since then.

“It’s interesting to know it traveled (34 km)!” added Flint, who says he actually tracked a sample 80 km from the starting point.