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727-Pound Alligator Breaks Record Set By 723-Pounder One Hour Earlier

By Dusten Carlson
Published on: 01:45 PST, Sep 3, 2013

A 727-pound alligator was discovered in Mississippi this weekend, breaking the previous record held by a 723-pound alligator. Oddly, the previous record was only just set an hour earlier.

During the first weekend of alligator season, Beth Trammell and her hunting party captured a 13-foot, 723-pound alligator early Sunday, shattering the previous weight record of 697.5 pounds, reports WTVR.

But their victory was short-lived when, just an hour later, Dustin Bockman captured a 727-pound alligator in the MIssissippi River in Claiborne County. His was 13-feet as well, and just a few inches shorter than Trammell’s.

Bockman told the Hattiesburg American that the capture came after a tense cat-and-mouse game, which ended when he managed to kill the gator with a crossbow.

“He broke all the lines we could put in him. Finally put a snare on him and got him up high enough and put a shot on him. All in all probably took us four and a half hours to catch him from the first time we saw him,” he said.

Then they spent the next few hours dragging him and waiting for help.

“We pulled his head up on the bank far enough he wouldn’t float away,” Bockman recalled. “He was so heavy he wasn’t going anywhere.”

He thought he may have caught a record-breaking gator, but was still amazed by how heavy his turned out to be.

“I knew he was over 700, but I wasn’t sure about 723,” he admitted.

Bockman, a UPS driver from Vicksburg, was assisted by his brother, Ryan, and friend Cole Landers.

You can check out photos of the 727-pound alligator below:

[Top image: Shutterstock]

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