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Alligator Hunting
This year’s alligator season produced monster results from ponds, rivers and lakes around the state. Take a look at some of these beasts in GON’s 2012 gator photo gallery.
It may not be Georgia’s new state record alligator, but without a doubt it is one of the largest hunter-killed gators ever taken in the state. With two separate measurements reported on a Eufaula gator killed opening morning, there was a little bit of confusion on what the official measurement would be. There was some…
Randy Hand, of Decatur, now holds the Georgia state record for the longest hunter-taken alligator after killing this 13-foot, 9-inch monster at Lake Seminole on Sept. 19. The gator weighed 692 pounds. Randy’s gator is just 2 inches longer than the old record, a 13-foot, 7-inch Blackshear gator taken in 2008.
Researchers conducting North Atlantic right whale work spotted a 5-foot alligator March 9 about 20 miles offshore from the mouth of the Altamaha River. At first, whale observers thought the animal was debris. After getting closer, they realized the gator was very much alive. The researchers snapped a few photos and moved on because they…
The alligator has roamed this planet for millions of years. It has gone from predator to prey and survived near eradication from the continent in the 1950s. These beasts have been around since the time of the dinosaurs; they are the true Jurassic Park of our time. After three years of waiting for a tag…
Shane Wilson of Cataula had never been drawn for a gator tag before. Neither had two of the other three hunters who launched two boats from the Camper’s Haven boat ramp on Lake Blackshear Sept. 12. It’s a good thing at least one of the four, Randy Pounds of Butler, had some experience gator hunting,…
An elderly Canadian woman was attacked and killed by an 8-foot alligator on Skidaway Island Friday, Oct. 5, the first documented fatality by a gator in Georgia. The body of Gwen Williams, 83, was found the following day in a lagoon at The Landings, a gated community on Skidaway, east of Savannah. Williams was house-sitting…
The population rebound of the American alligator is one of the great wildlife stories of my lifetime. I have been applying for a permit since Georgia’s first alligator season and was finally selected for the 2006 season. As I reflect on that awesome hunt I had last year, my excitement level builds in anticipation of…
Perhaps only if you’ve been there can you appreciate the dank, damp darkness of a river swamp in the first gray mists of morning. On the banks of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, all is black, or nearly so, with indistinct shapes melding into a swirling gloom. The only sounds are the lapping waves of…
Alligator pictures continued to pour into the GON office last month as hunters with coveted gator tags continued to try and fill their one-tag limit during the Sept. 9 to Oct. 1, 2006 alligator hunting season. Lake Seminole continues its reputation of being one of the very best places in this state to kill a gator —…