‘It was as big as a floating tree’: Hunters bag massive gator in oxbow lake near Natchez
Published 9:58 am Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Photos courtesy Jimmy Appleton via outdoorlife.com
NATCHEZ – A group of Mississippi alligator hunters were stalking a 12-foot gator in an oxbow lake near Natchez just hours before the season opened on Friday. But none of them were ready for what they found.
Jimmy Appleton and Blake Daugherty, both from Pope, were hunting with Daugherty’s two sons in an oxbow lake off the Mississippi River near Natchez, according to an article at outdoorlife.com. “We’ve all hunted gators together for years, including Cruz and Cash,” Appleton said. “We were looking for a big 12-foot gator we knew about that morning. We found him and backed off a bit watching him, waiting until noon.”
That’s when the group heard the “hair-raising growls” from another nearby gator. “It was the size of a floating tree,” Appleton said. The group watched the gator until noon, and Appleton hooked it on the first try – although the gator proved a challenge to land.
“It about snatched me out of the boat when I hooked it,” Appleton said.
A 35-minute battle ensued, with the alligator rolling and the hunters using hooks and handlines. “I was really surprised that we pretty much whipped that gator in about 35 minutes,” said Appleton. “A couple years ago we had a 11-footer that took us three hours to beat. I think that bigger one was just a tired old man.”
The 17-foot aluminum boat barely fit the gator, which measured 14 feet, 1/2 inch and 662 pounds – the third largest bagged in the state of Mississippi.
Read the complete article here.