On Friday night, Aug. 29, Noah Marbury and his team were hunting for a huge alligator south of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River when they located a big gator in a chute just off of the river.
“We spotted a large alligator and got hooked up with him and had quite a battle,” said Karley Hayes, a team member and veteran alligator hunter.
After a couple of close calls they gave up for the night with plans to return the next night.
Saturday night found them back in the chute searching for the alligator, but they didn’t have any luck in that area, so they headed north up the river in search of another alligator.
“We found an alligator, and we were trying to get up close enough for a cast when we heard a massive splash behind the boat,” Hayes said. “Danny Boler made a cast towards the gator, and I did too, but Danny’s hook came over the gator without a hookset.”
Hayes hooked the massive gator and the fight was on. Suddenly the alligator dove down and streaked away like a submarine, stripping line from Hayes’ reel as she held on with all the strength she could muster. In an instant, the enraged alligator snapped her braided line like it was sewing thread and it was over too soon.
“We hooked up with another gator later on and got him to the boat, but he was only a 9-footer, so we released him and went back to hunting for a mature alligator,” Hayes said.
Spotting a big gator
Brantlee Marbury and Anna Beauchamp were shining lights across the water in search of the monster gator as the night wore on.
The clock struck midnight and the group continued on, vowing to find a trophy alligator but having a tough time locating one.
Suddenly the monster appeared on the water with his eyes piercing the black night.
“Around 3 a. m., Danny cast out and hooked the gator first and then I hooked up with him,” Hayes said. “Danny’s line came off then, but I was still hooked up with him. The gator was enraged and fighting wildly and thrashing the water, so I got down on the boat deck and fought him.”
The team was using Alan Hayes’ 22-foot War Eagle boat with a 115 Evinrude motor, and it proved to be up for the task of handling the team and the monster gator.
Karley Hayes battled the beast valiantly, but they knew that it would take more help to wear down the man-eater sized gator, so other members of the team were trying to hook him up as well.
If you are not familiar with the rules of alligator hunting in Mississippi, anglers must get a line on the gator and secure them near the boat before they dispatch them. Wearing down an almost 800-pound monster gator is a tall order and much harder than just shooting them. If anglers just shot the alligators without first securing them, they would sink to the bottom and would likely be lost.
“My husband finally hooked up with the gator and got a throw line and hook on him,” Hayes said.” Then we got another line on him, and we started wearing the monster down.”
Teamwork
As the gator got sight of the boat, he thrashed wildly on the water surface, whipping his massive tail back and forth hitting anything he got near. Finally tiring and worn down, the gator was brought to the side of the boat, and they got ready for a shot.
Ka-Boom! The 20-gauge shotgun roared as Brantlee Marbury squeezed the trigger and fired a death shot into the gator.
“We fought the gator over 2 hours before finally dispatching him and then we had to get him into the boat to transport back to the land,” Hayes said. “We put a snare on him and realized he might have some more fight in him, so we got him over to a bank and Brantlee shot him again.”
“It took every one of the six of us to get the alligator in the boat,” said Noah Marbury, the tag holder. “Danny Boler and I were pulling from inside the boat with the ladies and Alan got into the water after we got the gator up near the bank. After we finally got him loaded into the boat we realized he was a big gator.”
It was 5:30 a.m. when they finally got him loaded into the boat and headed back to the landing.
“When we got back to Alan’s shop around 7:30 we got to measure him and we were all in shock at how big he actually was,” Marbury said. “It was definitely the experience of a lifetime. Alligator hunting is an adrenaline rush like no other when you get hooked up with a monster like this one!”
The monster gator measured 13-foot-11 and weighed approximately 760 pounds.
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