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BRADENTON HERALD (Florida) 11 December 05 Woman harpoons 12-foot alligator, prevails in ensuing 2-hour battle (Jerry Hill)
If Christie Bell stretches out full length, she stands 5-foot-3. Earlier this fall, this mite of a lady threw a harpoon into the 12-foot, 2-inch alligator shown in the photo on this page.
And that thrust of steel into the reptile initiated a knock-down, drag-out brawl that included five shots with a bang stick and culminated in the gator being dispatched some 150 minutes later with a screwdriver.
For those unfamiliar with bang sticks, they are devices first used by skin divers to kill sharks or, when they were legal, jewfish. A long aluminum or stainless steel pole is tipped with a device that holds a single cartridge or shotgun shell. When that head is pushed against the shark or, in this case alligator, the shell fires. If everything is working right, the target goes belly up and is no longer a problem.
But this was not your average fish-pond crocodilian. The horny plates across the gator's backside repelled the pistol rounds fired from the Bell family's bang stick.
But Christie's initial thrust had penetrated both lungs, and the big predator allowed itself to be towed to the side of an airboat, where a screwdriver inserted between the vertebrae at the base of the skull rendered it harmless.
OK. You've got a more or less dead alligator with roughly the body dimensions of a full-sized canoe and the weight of a steer.
You don't bring it in the airboat with you. The mouth was taped, a line attached and the scaled monster towed back to the Lake Istokpoga shore.
At that point, a team of sumo wrestlers couldn't have hauled the critter onto dry land. A four-wheel-drive pickup truck was hitched to Christie's trophy, and up it came onto the beach.
As is evident in the photo, a front-end loader was employed to hoist it skyward.
An Orlando taxidermist who specializes in gator mounts and skins (he does more than 400 a year) has been entrusted with the head and hide. He estimates this beast was roughly 90 years old.
How much meat does a gator carcass of this size yield? Christie, of Myakka Head, said it filled one and a half deep freezers.
Almost two decades ago, Florida wildlife managers realized total protection for the alligator wasn't working. The big flesh eaters were chomping on poodles, hunting dogs, livestock and, increasingly, humans.
Tightly controlled hunting is now allowed in the early fall when would-be participants are subjected to a lottery and then have to attend a safe hunting and conservation seminar before going out on the water.
To make sure the animals are not shot and unretrieveable, firearms are not allowed in the harvest. Instead, either harpoons or archery gear with lines attached to the projectile allow hunters to hang onto their targets until they can be subdued and killed with bang sticks - or screwdrivers.
(Warning: don't try this trick yourself. The Bells have considerable experience with alligators and were able to pull it off unharmed.)
Incidently, members of Christie's family circle hunt the big reptiles each fall, but this one gives her undisputed bragging rights.
Woman harpoons 12-foot alligator

BRADENTON HERALD (Florida) 13 December 05 Letter: Agonizing death
In the Outdoors section of your sports pages on Sunday, Jerry Hill implied that the slow killing of a magnificent 90-year-old alligator was almost heroic.
The only weapons the family had to fight this creature were a harpoon gun, a bang stick and a screwdriver. The harpoon gun was fired into the alligator, piercing both its lungs, and then the bang stick was used. A bang stick, by the way, is a pole tipped with a shotgun-shell. This bang stick was unsuccessfully fired five times and then a screwdriver was driven into the base of the skull to cut the vertebrae and render the reptile harmless. The article stated the alligator was "more or less dead." This can only mean that it was still alive. Why else would the family have taped its mouth before securing it to their airboat?
When the prize-catch eventually reached land a four wheel-drive pick-up and a front-end loader were used to hoist the trophy for photographs.
If the Florida Wildlife Management call this "tightly controlled hunting" by trained personnel, then what would "out of control hunting" consist of?
When Jerry Hill describes creatures like this as "targets, scaled monsters and trophies," then I know where his sympathies lie. But never mind, this particular 90-year-old alligator filled one-and-a-half deep-freezers.
Eat well and enjoy the environment.
David Rodgers, Bradenton
Letter: Agonizing death