Female hunter captures record-breaking gator in Mississippi river
A US woman has captured Mississippi's longest alligator on record from public waters following a 20-hour nighttime search for the reptile.
Tiffany Wienke and her party of six hunters captured the 311-kilogram beast on Saturday night in Claiborne County, near Port Gibson.
Renowned as Mississippi’s longest alligator, the reptile was 3.98 metres in length.
He reportedly had a belly girth that measured 1.4m wide and one-metre tall, USA Today reported.
Ms Wienke said she and the team of hunters had been searching "through the water, scanning bank to bank" for giant gators off the Mississippi River for 20 hours.
Luck struck at about 9.30pm when the hunters spotted the creature's giant head and slowly eased toward it.
Ms Wienke's husband, William Wienke, managed to get one hook on the gator and soon after, another hunter managed to get a second hook on him.
The Vicksburg woman said the gator broke both of the lines before it lurked back into the muddy waters.
About 20 minutes later, the creature resurfaced and Ms Weinke's team were able to hook the beast for a second time.
"We'd hooked him basically like a fish. We put the second line on him when he came up," Ms Wienke told the newspaper.
"He'd come up, get a breath, go down and run line out. He crashed into trees a couple of times running bank to bank."
When the hunters got a hold of the alligator, it was so large the team had to curl its head into a corner of the boat and rest the animal's tail on the opposite deck.
Photo: Facebook
Overall, it took the hunters almost two hours to capture, kill and lift the gator into their boat.
"We're completely content with the fact that this will probably be the biggest alligator that we'll ever catch," Ms Wienke said.
According to CBS, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Alligator encourage hunters to continue their search for more alligators.
In September 2013, Dalco Turner captured the state's heaviest gator, which weighed in at 336 kilograms.
The creature that Ms Wienke captured was 30mm longer than the one that was caught by Mr Turner.
