SavageSniper
New member
Thought you guys would like this.
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/14-Foot-Gator-Caught-in-Lake-Talquin-166965916.html
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/14-Foot-Gator-Caught-in-Lake-Talquin-166965916.html
Record Gator!
- Thread starter SavageSniper
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SavageSniper
New member
I dont think this is the state record though, but it is a huge gator none the less
State record and "Biggest gator" are 2 different things... It requires scales that meet certain inspection requirements... I had a gator with a bit of nose and a bunch of tail beyond the length of my 14 foot canoe making it a FULL 16 feet... I hauled tail to the ramp and he didn't care much for the boat launch canal.... lucky for me...
Brent
Brent
SavageSniper
New member
I just read that. The heaviest gator was just over 1000 pounds. WOW!! That will make your dog go missing!
SS, I may now be wrong... but at one time in recent memory... BSWIV had one or more gators in the top 10 if not 5 of longest/heaviest in true recorded state records... IIRC it was 3 seasons back when he had 2 MASSIVE lizards harvested in one season... he is gettin' lazy or old or both in these last couple years...
IIRC, he missed one being "recorded" due to less than stellar scales... I DO remember one weighed on "road scales" or race car "quad scales" But memory is elusive... like them dang little deer on texas ranches...
Brent
IIRC, he missed one being "recorded" due to less than stellar scales... I DO remember one weighed on "road scales" or race car "quad scales" But memory is elusive... like them dang little deer on texas ranches...
Brent
SavageSniper
New member
Yea I remember that. As a matter of fact I had the Jacksonville newspaper he was in with the 14+ foot 800 and something pound trex. It is on the wall at the old barber shop I went to in Lakeland. The biggest one that I have ever got was about 8 1/2 feet out of a farm pond.
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
At "Texas Jim's" snake farm at Sarasota, in 1950 I saw their "grandaddy gator" which they said was somewhere between fifteen and sixteen feet long.
I didn't challenge the number, nor did I volunteer to go into the pen to measure it.
I didn't challenge the number, nor did I volunteer to go into the pen to measure it.
According to the FWC the head measurements of a gator are a more reliable gage of its age and "size" than length or weight measures.
Our experience is that a lot of old gators are missing parts of their bodies, tails being at the top of the list.
Weight too is deceptive of age. A case in point being the heaviest one on record which weighed 1000 pounds. That beast was caught by a nuisance trapper because it had been feed for years at a waterside restaurant.
It was fat to the point of gross obesity........a situation caused by hush-puppies and other fried goodies. ( At lest that is the story I got from the son of the trapper who was called to come get it. )
The one in the story..............lord I'd of loved to find him in one of the public hunt areas that has a lot of food. As it was he was caught because he was a pest.
That's one of the truly dangerous things about gators......its that if they become accustomed to associating humans with food by being fed then they lose their natural wariness and then things can get ugly.
Sure do wish I'd of found his big but out on one of the lakes we hunt.....!!
Our experience is that a lot of old gators are missing parts of their bodies, tails being at the top of the list.
Weight too is deceptive of age. A case in point being the heaviest one on record which weighed 1000 pounds. That beast was caught by a nuisance trapper because it had been feed for years at a waterside restaurant.
It was fat to the point of gross obesity........a situation caused by hush-puppies and other fried goodies. ( At lest that is the story I got from the son of the trapper who was called to come get it. )
The one in the story..............lord I'd of loved to find him in one of the public hunt areas that has a lot of food. As it was he was caught because he was a pest.
That's one of the truly dangerous things about gators......its that if they become accustomed to associating humans with food by being fed then they lose their natural wariness and then things can get ugly.
Sure do wish I'd of found his big but out on one of the lakes we hunt.....!!
SavageSniper
New member
Kinda like bull sharks are that follow tarpon tournaments. They know an easy meal. BSWIV, I know where there is a big and unfed (except for hogs and calves) is in the withlacoochee river near the GA state line. I guess he is 12-13 ft by rough measurements. I just have nothing to handle something that big and I dont want to kill him if I might loose him.