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| Rob Flick wrestles open the jaws with Bobby Westbury |
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| 'Das one TALL alligator |
On the next to last day of the S.C. alligator season, Rob
Flick and Bobby Westbury hauled in a monster alligator just south of Westbank
Landing. After an eight-hour hunting trip they returned to the ramp with a
trophy gator that weighed 558-pounds! The monster gator measured 12-feet
9-inches in length, which nearly filled up their 22-foot Pathfinder boat, and
it will yield nearly 200-pounds of gator meat. This
is Westbury’s first gator season but his prior two trips out with Flick yielded
no gators. Flick had been drawn by the SCDNR for a gator tag and was keen to
use it before the season went out on October 12. They put in at dawn and rode
south down the Edisto River from Westbank Landing into the creeks between Hope
Plantation and Pon Pon Plantation. With
gator season nearly over, perhaps the hunting pressure had subsided because
this gator-hunting tandem was surprised to see the BIG gator loitering in a
small creek channel and not trying to be elusive. When they approached the
gator submerged itself but they were ready with heavy spinning tackle rods
rigged with treble hooks. “I had a Penn Slammer heavy-action rod and a Penn
704Z reel rigged with 100-pound braid,” said Flick. They
first hooked into the mature reptile at 10:30 a.m., causing the big gator to
stay deep and to begin swimming off. “We didn’t see the gator again for
2.5-hours,” said Flick. “We broke out a second fishing pole outfit and snagged
the gator, so that when one line would part, we still had contact with our
prey. The gator tired around 1 p.m. after dragging us against the current about
500-yards.” When
the gator rose to the surface and they saw his 6-foot long tail making powerful
strokes back and forth in the water they looked at each other as if to say what
do we do now? Neither of them had tangled with an alligator this size before!
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| 'Das a LONG alligator from the ACE Basin |
To read the entire feature article in the newspaper click Colletonian.
(Photos provided by Cordray's)
To view past blog entries about gators click here.
I didn't know we had them that big in sc. Monster!
ReplyDeleteYeah Joel, they grow big here, but should be less and less now that they are hunted. This one should stand the test of time.
ReplyDelete