On to the second part of our day of gator hunting! It was back down to the duck ponds to hunt for my gator and, once again, we saw dozens of gators. After about 30 minutes of {carefully} exploring the banks and edges of the ponds, I saw an odd looking mass about 70 yards ahead of us through the reeds. I put the scope up to be sure of what could perhaps have been a log (yes, I’ve had that scare before – just about jumped out of my waders when I saw… a stump).

No stump this time! Once we confirmed he was over 8 ft, i refocused the scope and pulled the trigger. The gator made one move to the left, and didn’t move again, so I was concerned for a minute that I had missed him. We edged closer and I took one more shot just to be sure. Again, he didn’t move. Figuring we were safe, we headed on over to the big guy to see just how large he really was. Aaaand then his tail made a nice swipe across the bank, making everyone jump backwards as quick as we could move. Thankfully my rifle was still loaded and in hand, so I made sure to keep the cross hairs on him. Turns out, just like a snake, gators still move after they’re dead. Yikes.

Then, it was time to drag this beast out and measure! And of course have a few photo ops. He was ultimately 9’1″ and, as we quickly discovered, only had 3 legs! How strange… How he lost that one front leg, we will never know. He also had a hole in his top jaw that allowed one of his lower teeth to show through. Any idea what would have caused that?