Photo demonstrating why they had to shoot the gator to protect their group available at URL
COURIER-JOURNAL (Louisville, Kentucky) 24 July 05 Fishermen snag a surprise in Lincoln pond (Byron Crawford)
Photo: Derek Wynn, left, and David Wynn, 10-year-old twins, tangled with this alligator with their father, Bobby Wynn. (Byron Crawford)
Luckily, Bobby Wynn of Rockcastle County decided to take his twin sons bluegill fishing instead of swimming in his brother-in-law's farm pond a few days ago.
"We hadn't been there 20 minutes, I guess, when I threw a top-water bait back up in a little old cove, and boy, something hit it, and down it went," Wynn said. "When it came back up, it did that 'death roll,' they call it, and snapped my line, and when it rolled over I saw what it was."
An alligator?
The 10-year-old twins headed for the truck, and their dad retreated a few feet himself, still trying to figure out if he had actually seen what he thought he saw, and how big it was.
"In a few minutes it surfaced again, and you could just see the top part of its head," Wynn recalled. "It saw the guys' two fluorescent orange floaters still out there, and it started easing toward them."
By that time, the boys, Derek and David, had regained their composure and returned to their fishing rods. Their father said they later each hung the gator at different times when it went after their floaters.
"It was exciting," David said.
The boys' Zebco 303 spinning reels and 20-pound test line proved no match for the gator, which measured 42 inches and weighed about 22 pounds.
"All I had with me was a pistol -- and by that time I couldn't have shot the pond," Bobby Wynn remarked. "My nephew that lives just above the pond there came down with a .22 rifle and shot the alligator."
So far, no one has learned how the gator came to be in the pond, where livestock routinely water. The pond is on Ralph Hines' farm near Ky. 39 in Lincoln County, just across the Rockcastle County line. The pond cannot be seen from the highway and is only a few hundred feet from the farmhouse.
Conservation officers Steve Isaacs of Rockcastle County and Rick Muse of Lincoln County have been looking into the incident, but it is presumed that the reptile was someone's pet that grew too large or too aggressive to keep and was turned loose.
Mark Marraccini, assistant to the commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, notes that a new Kentucky law prohibits possession of inherently dangerous animals in Kentucky -- including alligators -- unless the owners can prove that they had them before the law took effect July 13.
Jim Lane, director of the wildlife division, recalls officers investigating an alligator maybe 4 or 5 feet long that was caught in the Kentucky River about two years ago. One was also caught in Lake Barkley in recent years, he said.
Col. David Casey, chief of enforcement for the department, said the Kentucky River gator was caught on a trotline by a fisherman who called him to report having seen the alligator several times along a stretch of river in the vicinity of Clay's Ferry.
Casey may not have heard the last of alligators. Bobby Wynn and his sons said something resembling another alligator surfaced in the farm pond the same day the other one broke their fishing lines.
"We really couldn't tell what it was," Wynn said. "I guess it could have been a bullfrog, but if it was … it was a pretty good bullfrog."
Fishermen snag a surprise in Lincoln pond
