There was a time when alligators were threatened in the United States, but today they're one of the most prolific big game species in the South. In fact, there are some five million gators roaming their native haunts in 2024—from Texas to North Carolina.
Most states where gator populations exist allow some form of hunting for the critters, and most of those seasons are currently underway. In celebration of alligator hunters hitting the swamps, lakes, rivers, and bayous this fall, we've rounded up five of the most impressive gators ever harvested by hunters—including a 1,025 pounder killed by a Massachusetts woman in South Carolina more than two decades ago and a 15-foot Alabama World Record.
1. Mandy Stokes' Alabama Monster
Mandy Stokes, a mother of two from Mill Creek, Alabama, holds the world record for biggest gator ever harvested by a hunter. She took the enormous reptile back in 2014 while hunting with a crew on the Alabama River. It weighed an astonishing 1,011.5 pounds and measured 15 feet, 9 inches—edging out the standing Safari Club International World Record at time by 8 inches. According to Stokes, who spoke with F&S about the hunt back in 2017, the taxidermist found a 3-year-old doe, two squirrels, a duck, and part of a cow in the alligator’s belly.
2. Back-to-Back Mississippi Giants
Some of the biggest hunter-harvested gators seen in the last few years have come out of Mississippi. Most recently, avid gator hunter Megan Sasser hauled in a behemoth weighing more than 800 pounds. Sasser's gator nearly toppled the Magnolia State record, set in 2023 by Tanner White, Don Woods, and Will Thomas. That gator (pictured above) weighed 802.5 pounds and stretched 14 feet, 3 inches in length. Both reptiles were photographed and processed at Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City, Mississippi and went on to make local and national headlines.
3. Braxton Bielski's Texas Tank
A Texas teenager killed the Lone Star State's record alligator back in 2013. Eighteen-year-old Braxton Bielski was gator hunting in the James Daughtry WMA with his dad, about 90 miles south of San Antonio, when the gator got hooked up with to a raw chicken on the end of his baitline. He shot it and towed it over to a nearby beach before loading it into his flat-bottom skiff with help from his father. It weighed 800 pounds even and measured 14-feet, 3-inches long.
4. Sunshine State Length Record
Florida makes more headlines for invasive Burmese pythons these days, but the Sunshine State is teeming with giant alligators as well. The longest on record was taken 14 years ago this November by seasoned gator hunter Robert "Tres" Ammerman. It measured 14 feet, 3.5 inches and weighed 654 pounds when Ammerman and two other hunters tagged it in November 2010 in the Lake Washington area of the St. Johns River. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the heaviest Florida gator ever documented weighed 1,043 pounds, but it was captured by nuisance trapper, not killed by a hunter.
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5. Mary Ellen Mara-Christian's South Carolina Legend
When considering weight alone, you'll be hard-press to find a bigger hunter-harvested alligator anywhere than Mary Ellen Mara-Christian's 13-foot, 1,025-pound South Carolina giant. A native of Massachusetts, Mara-Christian bagged the gator in September, 2010 while hunting on Lake Moultrie near Columbia. "It was right there swimming on the edge of the bank," she recalled, in an AP news segment from 2010 that's gone on to amass more than 1.7 million views on Youtube. "Your heart's just pumping and pumping. It was enormous!" To this day, it's the biggest alligator ever captured or killed in Palmetto State history.
