GA Man Likely Breaks Record For Largest Gator Captured In State

GEORGIA — A south Georgia man may have broken a state record for the largest alligator caught in Georgia when he captured one measuring more than 14-feet long.

Derrick Snelson, of Meriwether County in southwest Georgia, caught the alligator in Lake Eufaula. The reptile was measured at 14-feet, 1.75-inches by WRD Technician Matt Skinner, Georgia Outdoor News said. The previous state-record hunter harvested Georgia gator came from Lake Seminole in 2013, GON said, and measured 13-feet, 10.75 inches.

Snelson hired Lethal Guide Service to take him out on a guided gator hunt with his 14-year-old daughter and family friend on Labor Day weekend.

On Sunday, Sept. 1, the group set off on Lake Eufaula around 8 a.m. and were originally after a smaller gator when Snelson spotted the larger beast on a lily pad.

“None of us knew he was that big until it was over,” Snelson said to GON. “We just knew he had a nice-sized head on him."

The group finally caught the gator after more than five hours and 45 minutes of trying to get the gator onto the boat.

“I don’t know where I’m going to put him, but I am having him mounted,” Snelson told GON. “That thing (could be) 80 or 90 years old. I’m 39, so just out of respect that he lived that long, I felt like I needed to mount him. I’m not just a ‘go kill something just to say I killed something’ kind of hunter. I’m not just a sport hunter. That’s the main reason I am going to mount him, where we can see him from now on. My daughter is all over it. We got him packaged up. We are going to eat him.”

Although the gator came in as the longest, which must be confirmed by the Georgia Department of Resources for the record books, it was not the heaviest alligator captured in the state. GON reports the gator weighed 700 pounds, but some of the largest gators caught have been reported to weigh more than 900 pounds.

Alligator hunting season began Aug. 16 and runs through Monday, Oct. 7, and hunters are allowed one bag one animal per season, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said.

"The alligator population in Georgia is one of many renewable natural resources that can sustain limited harvest in concert with biological monitoring and periodic evaluations," the GDNR said. "Georgia’s flourishing alligator population is managed through a regulated hunting season. Additionally, licensed nuisance alligator agent-trappers annually remove about 450 alligators in the state."