Gator Hunting in Alabama with News 5

If you're scared of the dark, the water, or giant lizards, alligator hunting may not be the sport for you. It takes a hunting permit, lots of patience, and bug spray.

A total of 80 alligators were caught as of Monday morning, according to officials at the Department of Natural Conservation at Five Rivers in Spanish Fort. That means only 64 percent of hunters caught an alligator this year.

This is the fourth year alligator hunting season has been reopened in Alabama.

"Gators are cannibalistic," said Jim Daugherty, our tour guide for the night. "Bigger gators will eat smaller gators."

Only 125 hunters were given permission to hunt in Mobile and Baldwin County during Alabama's two week alligator season. The tags were distributed to the lucky few in a random raffle drawing earlier in July.

Alabama hunters are allowed to catch and keep any alligator they can get over six feet - but they can only keep one. Most of the people we drove up to on our boat had already caught a gator, but it wasn't as big as they wanted.

Everyone who caught a gator had to go to check in with the game warden in Spanish Fort on the Causway.

"We're looking for a 12-footer," said one hunter on his boat Friday night. "We let one go last weekend that was probably about 10 foot 6, maybe just over 10 foot 6."

For Michael Dees and his son Keith Dees, they got lucky the first time.

"He's the first one we hooked tonight," said Keith, referring to the massive 512 lb, 12.2 foot alligator lying next to him.

"I don't know what we're going to do with him," said Michael Dees. "We might make a coat or something out of him."

But don't feel too bad for the gator. Humans are the only predator of this 65 million year old species.

They were once on put on the endangered species list back in the 1950s, but are one of the few animals that have returned successfully and are now thriving in the Southeast United States.

The largest gator hauled away this season weighed in at 750 lbs.