Alligator season in Anahuac, Texas has been good to David Fontenot. Final 12 months throughout Texas Gatorfest, he caught the most important alligator of the day, profitable the competition with an 11.5-footer from the George Ruby Bend of the Trinity River behind the Alligator Alley RV Park. This 12 months on Sept. 14, simply two days earlier than Gatorfest 2022 was set to start, Fontenot and his household lugged in a 14-foot gator from the identical water behind the identical RV park, leaving Fontenot simply three inches shy of the Texas state document.
Fontenot, 56, was acquainted with the huge gator, since he’s a part-time resident of the aptly-named Alligator Alley. The park sits proper the place the Trinity River dumps into the Anahuac Channel, which runs from Lake Anahuac to Trinity Bay east of Houston. Fontenot instructed Outside Life the gator lived behind the RV park final 12 months, then he disappeared for the winter and spring and reappeared two days earlier than the season started on Sept. 10.
“There are some massive ones on the market,” Fontenot instructed Bluebonnet Information. “They’re on the market each evening…We have been form of involved about youngsters and pets within the parks as a result of this factor was so enormous.”
Fontenot used rooster as bait at first, however was then shocked to find it wasn’t attracting the large gator. Then he tried beef liver, which additionally didn’t work. Within the night of Sept. 13, at his spouse’s recommendation, he switched to mullet, a saltwater fish that’s usually thought-about “trash fish” by Gulf Coast residents. The gator, then again, ate it proper up. After Fontenot realized they’d caught the huge gator, they dispatched him rapidly.
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A gator this lengthy may have weighed near 1,000 kilos, so slightly than making an attempt to elevate him out of the water, Fontenot and his sons-in-law towed the gator to the shore. From there, they lashed him to a ship trailer and hauled him out of the water as if he had an outboard motor and a fiberglass hull.
Fontenot and his household took the gator to Porter’s Wild Sport Processing the place Casey Hedges, the proprietor, purchased the complete gator from Fontenot with intentions to show him on the retailer. Hedges instructed Fontenot it’s the most important gator he’s ever seen and there’s an excellent probability it’s the most important one ever caught in Anahuac. Fontenot couldn’t enter the gator within the Gatorfest competitions since he snagged it earlier than the festivities started, however it’s secure to imagine a 14-footer would have stood an opportunity to win Fontenot one other every day catch contest.
“We hauled him out on Wednesday and Gatorfest wasn’t till Saturday, so we may have left him on the market however I didn’t need him to undergo. Or we may have put him on ice till then, however then we might have misplaced the meat,” Fontenot says. “The most important one introduced in for Gatorfest this 12 months was 12 ft and 9 inches, so we all know we might’ve taken it.”
