Eufaula 12-Foot Gator Kicks Off 2024 Season

It took eight years to draw a gator tag on Lake Eufaula, and John Henry Spann (center) said he wasn’t going to chance it with a DIY hunt. He hired Lethal Guide Service, and the result was this 12-footer on opening morning. He was joined by his 12-year-old son Henry and good friend Jonathan DeThomas.

When I was a little boy, I loved dinosaurs. I loved how big they were, how cool they looked and how exciting it was that the world used to be covered in them. I had all the dinosaur toys you can imagine, went to see every Jurassic Park movie, read and re-read the dinosaur encyclopedia and could tell you the name of everything from an allosaurus to diplodocus. As I grew into my teenage years, I pretended like I had gotten over my obsession with the ancient reptiles. I talked to my friends about sports and girls and cars, but deep down, I never truly let go of my interest in the awesome creatures that once ruled the planet. 

As of today, I am 35 years old  and well past the point when I worry about whether or not my interests will make me popular or jive with modern sensibilities. I will unabashedly say that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, political correctness is ruining civil discourse, and I still love dinosaurs!

I also love to hunt. I have hunted everywhere from Ossabaw Island to Africa and hunted everything from dove to wildebeest. Besides my faith, my beautiful bride and my five wonderful children, hunting and trapping are my only real passions. I walk the woods and fields and soak up as much of God’s creation as I can while I can, and if I’m able, I take a gun, bow or fishing rod with me.

After eight years of building preference points, I finally drew a Zone 1A alligator tag on Lake Eufaula. With it taking so long to get drawn, I reached out to Lethal Guide Service instead of opting for a DIY hunt. My 12-year-old son and one of my best friends, Jonathan DeThomas, joined me on this hunt.

As we boarded the boat early in the morning of Aug. 17, the engine roared to life, and we set out into what was to be one of the greatest adventures of my life.

Alligators like to move early in the morning, and after less than a half hour of trolling the shoreline, my eagle-eyed guides saw something worth investigating. He said a good-size gator had submerged a few hundred yards ahead. We came to the spot, and he began casting a fishing rod with a large, weighted treble hook on the end. After a few casts, the line went taut, and the yellow fishing line started to fly off the reel.

This was only the beginning of what would become a two-hour fight against a 600-lb. lake monster. We started throwing other lines to ensure that we didn’t lose the gator’s location. Myself, and everyone else on board, took turns on different rods, sometimes losing the monster, but always keeping at least one line in contact as an indicator of where he was in the murky depths below. After about 45 minutes of chasing, he finally surfaced for a breath.

“That’s a really good one,” was the message from the expert hunters.

We started to plan out the end game. This began with me taking a snatch-hook attached to 1,200-lb. test rope and throwing it in the water past where we thought the gator was located. I then slowly dragged it across the lake’s bottom until I encountered resistance, hopefully from the thick hide of the gator. I pulled hard and held on as the reptile jettisoned toward the surface, his tail whipping across the 20-foot boat, rocking it side to side. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my son smile wider!

My goal was to get the gator to surface and into harpoon range. After a few intense minutes of fighting him, he resurfaced. My guide handed me one of the harpoons, and I thrust it into his underbelly, detaching the metal prong, which would remain in the hide, attached to a cable in the boat until we dispatched him.

Two harpoons later, it seemed like we had a semblance of control. We struggled against the gator, trying to get him beside the boat. Once the gator was pulled beside the boat, in a brief moment of calm, I was able to position myself over his head, and slam a bang stick into the back of his skull. The .357 round caused the water to explode in a quick blast of water, and there was, after nearly two hours of struggle, silence.

High-fives, hugs and handshakes went around. I tried to maintain my composure as my knees shook and the same sensation I feel when I get hit with buck fever washed over my body. I don’t think my son or I stopped smiling once during the long process of hoisting the dead alligator into the boat, measuring, reporting the harvest and returning to shore. The alligator ended up being 12 feet long and was born sometime during the 1970s.

He is at Flint’s Wild Game Processing now, and I look forward to filling my freezer with between 100 and 200 pounds of organic wild-caught alligator. I hope to have the skull adorn my living room bookshelf, and if I scrape together the money, have a nice pair of boots made, as well.

All in all, this was a wonderful experience. I couldn’t be happier that I was able to share it with my son, a 12-year-old Daniel Boone in the making and one of the lights of my life, and “Dethom,” who I cherish as a former roommate, brother in Christ and dear friend. I also couldn’t be happier to have gone with Lethal Guide Service. Without their expertise, I never would have gotten on this giant.

Lastly, and most importantly, I want to thank the One and Only God and Lord of everything, who has been so gracious in His blessings to me.