Hunters Snag 14-Foot Alligator That Looks Straight Out Of ‘Jurassic Park’ Movie
(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Two Mississippi hunters, Blake Daugherty and Jimmy Appleton, went into gator season with a solid plan: hook the 12-foot alligator they’d scouted earlier near an oxbow lake off the Mississippi River. But that plan got scrapped real quick when they saw something out of a Jurassic Park fever dream.
“We were watching this big 12-footer we’d spotted earlier,” Appleton told Outdoor Life. “We backed off and waited until around noon.” That’s when they heard it—a deep, bellowing growl followed by a roar that sounded more T. rex than reptile.
“We knew then—that’s the king of the swamp,” said Daugherty. “He’s letting everybody know, ‘I’m the big dog.’”
And just like that, the 12-footer got benched. Game on.
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They tracked the monster gator through the water, and on Appleton’s first cast, he hooked it.
“It about snatched me clean out of the boat,” he said. “I tried to lift him off the bottom, but he wouldn’t move an inch.”
That’s when Daugherty landed a second hook, and the beast did what gators do best—went full death roll. Chaos.
Two buddies found the biggest gator they’ve ever seen, just ahead of the Mississippi alligator opener: https://t.co/uriMSVBe2z pic.twitter.com/cTMlqQoaOK
— Outdoor Life (@outdoorlife) September 3, 2025
“He was dragging my 17-foot boat around like a kayak,” Appleton said.
With help from Daugherty’s sons, Cruz (11) and Cash (9), they finally wrangled the prehistoric powerhouse using a snare and a bang stick.
When they got the gator to Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City, the numbers were ridiculous:
14 feet and a quarter inch long, tipping the scales at 662 pounds. Just two inches shy of the all-time Mississippi state record.
Naturally, the skull of this swamp titan is being mounted—because legends deserve a throne.
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