PRESS-REGISTER (Mobile, Alabama) 20 August 07 Delta gives up another record (Jeff Dute)
The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is either growing more big alligators, hunters are getting better at finding them or a little bit of both because the place produced three Alabama state record animals in 24 hours over the weekend.
The largest of those is the 12-foot, 10-inch, 641-pound behemoth John Sutton and his crew brought to the scales just as daylight was breaking on Sunday.
Sutton said when he pulled up to the scales at the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources District V office on the Mobile Bay Causeway, he saw a small group of fellow hunters celebrating their success.
There was no way Sutton could have known that those hunters were excited because group member Michael Odom's 12-foot, 5-inch, 525-pound alligator had pushed Cory Smith's 12-foot, 6-inch, 492-pound animal from the top spot after a record reign of less than a day.
Sutton had his alligator weighed and measured and returned home, still not aware of the fact that he was pulling around the new state record in his boat.
"When I got home, one of the guys in our group, Chad Connor, called and asked me if I'd seen the front page of the newspaper yet," Sutton said. "He said, 'The story says the Alabama state record gator weighed 492 pounds, so I guess we got the new state record.' I had no idea."
Sutton said he held the only permit out of his crew of Connor of Saraland, Bill Cobb and Brad Russell of Birmingham, Mark Fincher of Elberta and Kenny Hanak of Daphne.
They had seen quite a few undersize alligators and a couple right at the minimum of 6 feet in more than nine hours on the water and had decided to move to their last spot of the night when they came across the big alligator at about 3:30 a.m., he said.
"We were running the Tensaw River from McReynolds up toward Dennis and were shining the bank when we saw two sets of eyes about half-way between Cliff's Landing and Dennis," Sutton said. "We got to within 50 yards of them and when I saw the big one I told the guys, 'No doubt, he's a keeper.'"
Sutton said each time the alligator would sound, they were able to get a little closer when it surfaced.
"When he came up the third time we were close enough that I was able to stick him with a crossbow and gator getter," Sutton said. "He went straight to the bottom."
Despite the fact the gator went to the bottom in roughly 27 feet of water in the main river channel, Sutton said the crew was able to get two grappling hooks in him and within 15 minutes had him to the boat.
"We decided to stick him with a harpoon to get a bigger line on him, but as soon as it hit him he took off back toward the bottom and tore the grappling hooks and arrow out, so then we only had the harpoon line in him. It was a mess there for a minute and we almost lost him," Sutton said.
Again, Sutton said his crew was able to throw two grappling hooks over the alligator and bring him back to the surface where a second harpoon struck home.
"With the four lines on him we were able to keep him from sounding again and got him to the boat pretty quickly," Sutton said.
Shortly before 5 a.m., Sutton said they had the alligator secured to the boat and two .44-magnum bangstick shots to the back of the head ended the battle.
"We knew he was a big gator because we could hear him when he broke the water's surface, but we didn't know how big," Sutton said.
Sutton said the news of his alligator's size was already the talk circulating around Powell's Grocery, the local gathering spot in his hometown of Stockton, a small rural community north of Bay Minette.
"After I talked to Chad, I went down to Powell's to get some ice to put on him and four people came up and asked to see my alligator," he said. "Stockton's a little place. They knew I had a state record before I did."
ADCNR personnel said 29 alligators were killed on the second night of the hunt, bringing the two-day total to 48. There had been no accidents and no citations among alligator hunters.
The first weekend hunt ended at 6 a.m. today.
The second weekend hunt begins at 8 p.m. Friday and runs consecutive nights through 6 a.m. next Monday.
Delta gives up another record