Record-breaking 329-kilogram alligator caught in Mississippi
On the same weekend in the US state of Mississippi, three separate hunting parties have caught three different alligators each weighing more than 300 kilograms.
The animals were caught during Mississippi's alligator hunting season, with two out of the three breaking size records.
The first alligator was 180cm in length and caught by Michael and Bethany Piper after more than two hours of exertion.
The duo initially reeled the animal in with a fishing pole and then with a shot gun.
The second alligator was caught by amateur hunter Beth Trammell and her hunting party who took more than four hours to reel in a record-breaking three-hundred-and-twenty-seven kilogram gator.
“When we first saw him, I yelled 'oh my gosh we caught the Loch Ness Monster!’” Trammell told ABC News.
"It was totally unbelievable."
Trammell's team's record was, however, broken only an hour after it was set by 27-year-old UPS driver Dustin Brockman and his friends.
Brockman's party caught a three-hundred-and-twenty-nine kilogram gator which measured more than 4 metres in length, using a crossbow.
"He broke all the lines we could put in him," Bockman told MS News Now.
"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.
When Brockman's group were unable to pull the animal onto their boat, they moored the alligator on a nearby sandbar.
“We pulled his head up on the bank far enough he wouldn’t float away,” Brockman told the Hattiesburg American.
“He was so heavy he wasn’t going anywhere.”
Prior to Trammell and Brockman's catches, the previous weight record was 316 kilograms.
This is Mississippi's ninth annual alligator season in a sport with growing popularity, said the state's alligator program coordinator Ricky Flynt.
"It is quite an adventure and is perceived as being dangerous game," he said.
Despite its inherent dangers, alligator hunting has produced just one injury in Mississippi, Flynt said.
A man required surgery to his thumb after getting bit while trying to reel in a gator.
Flynt attributed the multiple records to an expanded territory - this is the first year Mississippi has allowed statewide hunting - and to normal water levels in the rivers.
Last year's droughts hindered the hunts, he said, despite a total haul of 513.
Mississippi does a lottery for alligator hunting licenses. More than 7,100 people applied this year and the state gave out just 920 permits.
Also, the state requires hunters attend a mandatory alligator hunting safety course.
According to The Huffington Post, both hunting parties plan to eat the alligator meat.
