It wasn’t just the Florida Gators football team that had a bad night Saturday when they lost to Alabama’s Crimson Tide, says Hastings resident Shawn King.
King has personal knowledge of an 11-foot, 7 -inch alligator that would have rather been anywhere else but the Rodman Reservoir on that night. That’s where King, who has been hunting alligators for three years, bagged the 460-pound reptile — solo.
Kevin Torregrosa, Alligator Farm curator of reptiles, said one that size could be 20 to 30 years old.
And while it’s not overly large for its species — 600-pounders populate the Alligator Farm — it’s not bad for one not in captivity.
“It’s a big wild animal for sure,” Torregrosa said. “But American alligators can top out close to 1,000 pounds …”
Hunting gators in Lake Oklawaha, King harpooned the huge gator at 9:30 p.m., but “by the time I got him back to the boat ramp and into the boat, it was about 1:30 a.m.”
Moving to Hastings from Missouri about 15 years ago, King, 41, says he enjoys hunting alligators “because it’s a good time, and I like to eat gator. Gator tail’s good!”
He can’t recall how he learned about the sport — probably on the Florida Wildlife Commission website “or it could have been from one of my friends.” This is the third year he’s hunted aligators and the fourth year he’s purchased the $275 trapper’s license. Each year there’s a random drawing to select those allowed to hunt the alligators, and each person whose name is drawn gets two tags. Hunting season is August through October, and King’s name has been drawn three out of the four years.
Because he was alone King says he couldn’t get the 460-pound gator into the boat by himself, and his 17-foot boat didn’t seem “very big when that gator was tied to the back of it. He (the gator) dragged that boat around like it was a canoe!”
When King finally made the four-mile trip to the boat ramp, he used the hand winch on his boat trailer to haul the reptile into the motorboat. “It took about an hour and a half to get him into the boat at the boat ramp.”
King plans to package and freeze the meat, and he says he’ll call around to see about selling the hide, because he hates to see the hide not used. King says he likes to fry or grill the meat. “It’s like pork.”
This is the fourth and largest gator King has caught by himself, but “I’ve hunted with other people and all hunts combined” the total is eight to 10.
“It was a good time,” he concludes. “All my friends who said, ‘Man, I’d like to go with you sometime,’ should have been there.”