Jason Ullendorf of Gulfport participated in an alligator hunt on the Pascagoula River and spent the first night, Thursday, Sept. 5, on the water with some of his family members trying to get an alligator. The gator hunter had found out about a problem gator who was harassing people on a sandbar in the river and he finally located it, but she was backed up into a treetop with a partially decomposed deer beside her.
They made several attempts at harvesting the gator Friday night, but each time that they hooked it they broke off and lost their hooks. After losing all of the hooks they had in the boat they had to call it a night to go purchase some more hooks and try again.
“We went back to the river at 8:30 p.m. Friday night and made several attempts at hooking (her) but she was staying in an area of about 100 yards long,” Ullendorf said. “We finally hooked the gator and it dove down into the treetop and hung us on the limbs and eventually broke off.”
Ullendorf was joined by Joe Mangano of Richton, and they teamed up to fight the gator until they finally got a good hook up. After chasing the gator all over that section of the river, things were not looking good.
“We finally scared the gator enough that it left the treetop and went to a sandbar across the river,” Ullendorf said. “We went straight across to that gator and Joe and I both cast on it and I finally hooked it about 4:45 and it pulled us upriver quite a ways before it tired out and stopped.”
A dangerous situation
While Ullendorf was hooked up with the gator Mangano set a handline out and hooked him too and they started pulling the tired gator up.
“As soon as Joe got that handline on him and we started pulling him up he started biting the boat pontoons,” Ullendorf said.
The enraged gator came to life under the boat and was slamming the pontoons and biting everything it touched. All they could do was hold on for dear life and hope the gator tired and stayed hooked.
“I thought the boat might come apart at the pontoons that gator was thrashing and slamming into the boat so hard,” Ullendorf said. “I was really afraid it was going to damage the motor at the very least and that would have put us out of the game.”
After thrashing and slashing at the metal pontoons and hooks that held it precariously, the gator finally wore down enough for the hunters to start easing him up to the side of the boat. They had to be wary with the massive gator, as one wrong move could mean the loss of a limb or life if the gator was able to bite.
“We finally secured the alligator beside the boat after wearing her down and getting another line on her,” Ullendorf said. “She probably pulled us upriver about 600 yards before we slowed her down.”
The dark night sky was turning light with a hint of pink and orange on the horizon as they secured the gator near the boat. Ullendorf pulled out a .410 single shot and dispatched the gator at about 6:15 a.m. on Sept. 7.
A record book gator
Ullendorf actually caught the gator on the cheapest rod he had in the boat, one he’d gotten at a local Walmart. He had an 8/0 Gator Getter hook on 80-pound Procat Braid.
“I was actually kind of aggravated as I’d spent 18 hours chasing that gator and lost every hook I had,” Ullendorf said. “But we finally had one snare around the head and one around the tail and we went to the sandbar and taped her up and got all the hooks out and taped up her mouth to prevent a deadly accident because one bite could end it for you.”
“We took it back to our processing plant, Running M Meat Company,” Mangano said. “We offloaded it with a mini excavator and then looked closer at it and determined it was a female alligator.”
After confirming it was a female, they realized it might be a female record for the state of Mississippi as it was 11-feet ¾ inches long and weighed in at 324 pounds.
After calling Andrew Arnett, the MDWFP Alligator Program Coordinator, he came out and confirmed the length and weight. He also confirmed it was the largest female alligator harvested in the state of Mississippi.
Further information is needed, but the current world record for a female alligator by length appears to be 10-foot-6 gator caught and recorded in Florida. Since there is no centralized alligator record system by all states this has not been confirmed yet, but it seems that this will be the new world record for a female alligator.
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