MageeNews.com

(After I saw these alligators on Scott Womack's face book page...I "begged" him to share with our MageeNews.com readers. Scott is a Magee boy....grew up just up the hill from me...he is the son of James Howard and Patsy Tom Womack. A graduate of Simpson Academy, Scott is not only a alligator man but one of the top shooters in "the world."

Hope you will enjoy Scott's story:

Photos taken at 5:08am 9/9/12 after an all night hunting trip on Steele Bayou north of Eagle Lake near Vicksburg, MS.

My wife Sharon, who drew a tag for the West Central section, sits atop the male gator measuring 12 feet 8 5/8 inches in length, tail girth of 43 inches, and belly girth of 61 inches, estimated 650 +/- pounds. The gator was first spotted by my 12 year old son, Phillip in April 2011 while driving along Newman Road, bordering the flooded Steele Bayou on our way to help my father, James Howard Womack, remove items from the Womack camp at Mims Mitchell Hunting Club in Valley Park in preparation for the Great Flood of 2011.

On August 2, 2012, while on a scouting trip, we located the huge gators and saved a GPS waypoint on his location. After a quick trip to Pascagoula River on Friday, September 7, to where I caught a 9 foot 3 inch female alligator for tagholder Billy Reynolds of Petal, MS, I took my sons, Steven (14) and Phillio (12) to Mahannah WMA for the Youth Dove hunt where they killed 21 doves collectively, before launching the boat in Steele Bayou to alligator hunt.

When we found the alligator, we followed the it about 200 yards as it swam along the bank and just as I was preparing to , the gator slowly submerged. So I beyond his location which was in 3-4 feet of water and dragged the bottom until I felt contact and I set the hook gently at first then really pumped the rod to set the hook, but there was no reaction. As I began to wonder had I hooked a stump after nearly bending the Custom rod into the water, I knew I had to determine if it was a stump and if so, remove the hook and be prepare to continue blind ing.

I remembered an old trick Agent Alligator Trapper Corey Hunt taught me and I started to stomp on the deck of the boat to scare the alligator and my line starting swimming off. The gator was snagged with a Shakespeare Ugly Stik Custom rod & Calcutta 700B reel with 250 pound test Power Pro Hi-Viz yellow braided line, with a 10/0 treble hook & a 2 oz weight. After the first hook was set, 20 minutes later a 2nd hook was set, then a handline with a huge 20/0 treble hook, then a metal snare.

After a few "death rolls" the original two hooks became entangled in the handline and they both came out, but the 20/0 treble hook and snare held so a third rod with the same set up was snagged in the neck area.

Finally a .410 Rossi youth model shotgun with #6 shot was fired into the spine at the soft spot just behind the skull. Then we secured the mouth, dragged the gator into the rear of the boat by walking to the port side (left) back corner and when the corner went underwater, dragging the gator in to his front legs, waiting til the dual bildge pumps removed the water, then repeating until the back legs came in, waiting for the bilge pumps to remove the water, then sliding the gator into the front of the 18 foot Xpress boat.

The 90 hp Yamaha, with stainless propeller blades churning the muddy water, was idled back the five miles to the boat ramp in fog so thick, one could barely make out the front of the boat at times, due to the in temperature. The remote Go-Light was aimed at one bank while another spotlight was used to find the opposite bank and look for snags in the water.

Boat capacity is 565 pounds, our gear, gator, and boat crew, Garett Hester, my wife Sharon, sons, Steven and Phillip had a combined weight of over 2,000 pounds. The hookup occurred at 11:04 p.m. and the shot was taken at 11:49 p.m. 45 minutes of fighting the alligator, an hour of trying to load him over the side, then finally loading him from the back of the boat, and a 2 1/2 hour ride back to the boat ramp with the 650 +/- pound alligator on top of our cooler full of ice water.

Upon returning to Vicksburg, we moved the alligator into the bottom of the boat and covered him with approximately 460 pounds of bulk ice to begin to cool his carcass. We arrived home in at 7:45 a.m., sleep deprived but with an alligator only 10 inches short of the state record. Scott Womack 601 573 2006 scottwomack10@yahoo.com Phillip Womack (12) is pictured with the ragged ball cap on and Steven (14) is without a hat...