http://www.al.com/press-register/stories/index.ssf?/base/sports/1218964575277010.xml&coll=3&thispage=1
Eleven alligators caught on first night of hunt, including a 12-foot, 4-inch specimen that woke up the scales
Sunday, August 17, 2008
By JEFF DUTE
Outdoors Editor
first split of the 2008 alligator season on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta got off to a slow start compared to years past, but hunters managed to bring some impressively large lizards to the scales among the 11 killed on opening night Friday.
It wasn't until 1 o'clock Saturday morning that the first boats carrying alligators were towed toward the scales at the conservation department's District V office on the Causeway.
About an hour later, the night's two biggest animals hit the scales back to back — and the bigger of those two decided he didn't like all of the attention.
A half-dozen or so people standing closely around the boat holding Kyle Hayes' large alligator were duly impressed with its size, but when they noticed its eyes blink, they quickly expanded their vantage point.
When someone said excitedly, "It's still alive!" the armed conservation department personnel paid it a little more attention. None of them unsnapped the buckles securing their service revolvers, though a couple looked like they considered it. A few bystanders seemed to be wishing they had guns, too.
Finally convinced the animal wasn't a threat, it was carried to the scales, where it continued to blink while its vital statistics were recorded — male, 12 feet, 4 inches, 486 pounds.
It wasn't until after it had been rolled off the scales and several pictures were taken that the alligator tried to dodge the assembled paparazzi by unlimbering its feet and attempting to move.
One of Hayes' party, Tiger Godwin, quickly dispatched the alligator with a small-caliber rifle.
Hayes of Brewton, Godwin of Jay, Fla., and Tom Ard of Orange Beach were hunting at the "T" in Mifflin Lake when they spotted the animal the first time at around 9 p.m., but missed him.
Godwin, who is a nuisance alligator trapper in northwest Florida, said he decided to hunt above I-65 because even though there aren't as many animals up there compared to the lower Delta, they hadn't been hunted much.
Godwin said they got two crossbow arrows into the alligator's neck and had it to the boat in 15 minutes.
'He expends a lot of energy pulling the boat around in that deeper water and he'll wear himself out pretty quick," he said. "All you have to do after that is put some pressure on him."
Hayes said this was his first hunt and plans on applying again.
'We only saw two or three other boats up there all night," he said. "It was a lot of fun, and I hope I draw (a permit) again next year.
'I'll tell you what, though, I learned these things are hard to judge. I swear even when we shot him that I didn't think he was that big."
Minutes before Hayes' animal came in, it was almost déj vu all over again for Chip DeShields of Forest Home, Ala., and Joe Mastrangelo and James Fink, both of Pensacola, when they brought in a 12-foot, 3-inch, 449-pound male.
DeShields said the one they finally dispatched at about 11:45 Friday night was taken only several hundred yards from the spot where last year the trio killed a 12-foot, 9-inch, 545-pound alligator.
None of them would reveal the exact location of the spot but they said it was loaded with big alligators. They reported seeing nearly 75 animals in the four hours they were on the water.
They used two snatch-hook lines, a harpoon, a crossbow and a grappling hook during the more than two-hour fight.
'It took us more than five hours to get him in last year, but we learned to use leverage to our advantage a little more this year," said DeShields, who had brought the skull mount of his alligator from 2007 to have pictures taken with it and his latest kill.
It turned out to be a season of firsts for Lori Zirlott of Coden.
Besides being the first person to weigh an animal this year, it was Zirlott's first year of alligator hunting and it was also the first year she, along with her husband Simon, had applied for a tag.
'We had been wanting to do it since it began and this is the first year we went ahead and did it," Lori Zirlott said.
Her male alligator measured 9 feet, 4 inches long and weighed 204 pounds. Lori Zirlott said the alligator was snagged on the Blakeley about a mile north of the Battery and it took 45 minutes to get it secured to the boat and dispatched.
Hunters can hit the water again tonight at 8 and must quit hunting at 6 a.m. Monday.
The second split runs Friday through Monday. Hours are from 8 p.m.-6 a.m. each night.
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