I was party to the murder of a gator this size shot by a Ruger Mark IV .22 LR autopistol
At about 30 yards range
Matthews Brake in the Mississippi Delta near Egypt Plantation
A bunch of southern lads ..long haired stoned on Colombian weed and drinking a little “pull” ..peach brandy..duck hunters at duck camp in a warm spell during duck season
One of them saw the gator and fired off a shot jokingly
The gator started spinning like a mofo
And then stopped dead as a door nail
We quickly grabbed a duck boat and went on and grabbed the gator and towed it to shore and stashed it under bags of decoys
Funniest part was when another friend came down from the camp house and we asked him to go behind the canoe over there and bring a bag of decoys over
LoL....man it was so funny to watch him leap
It was 1976 or 77
Illegal of course
A leather maker used the hide well and we ate the meats...another taxidermist bud did the claws we put over the door in the main chow hall....it was an old depot that had been towed out there and put on pilings at the edge of the swamp.
It was a dangerous duck camp....I got shot there and my friend got his leg nicely cleaved by a .41 mag model 57
It’s an NWR now ....sadly