Be carefull Fishing in Florida

The alligator was found between Lake

Istapoka and Pinedale estates… near a house ,

Game Wardens were forced to shoot the

alligator- guess he wouldn’t cooperate.

Jayne and Don Hobkirk could hear

the bellowing in the night.

Their neighbors had been telling them

that they had seen a mammoth alligator

in the Lake that runs behind their house,

but they dismissed the stories as being exaggerations.

“I didn’t believe it,” Don Hobkirk said.

Friday they realized the stories were,

if anything, understated.

Florida Game and Parks game wardens

had to shoot the beast..

Joe Goff, 6′ 5″ tall, a game warden with the Florida Game and Parks Commission, walks past the 23-foot, alligator that he shot and killed in the back yard of Jayne & Don Hobkirk…

That is a mature, full grown white-tail deer in it’s mouth

Having spent a little time in Florida, I know this threat to be a very real one. In fact, I had a VERY close encounter while swimming once! The only reason I’m here to tell the story is that the female was only guarding her nest, not looking for an easy meal. She was also a bit shorter……only about 9′ long.

I’ve seen a couple this size though…… and while it was in a park, when I first saw one, I thought it was a carving or statue! It was SO big I thought, “WOW! Wouldn’t that be something if that thing was for real?”, and about that time, it moved just a bit to adjust it’s sunning position! Truly an intimidating and AMAZING predator! It is simply an eating machine!

OMG that thing is a mammoth pretty scary that things of that size even exist..looks like some sort of dinosaur!! Imagine all the 20 lb bass that get eaten by those things

Might want to check out Snopes on these two. They’ve been floating around a while. Two different gators. First is from Georgia/SC border. Second is from TX and is supposed to be 13′ not 23′. I dont think saltwater crocs even get that big.

Either way those are still some pretty big critters.

Yeah, that’s either a bad photoshop job or the gamewarden is 3′ tall. I was fooled until I saw the tailgate in the foreground.

You could be right. A buddy of mine e-mailed me this yesterday, I thought it was cool. It may just be an internet joke, like the giant rattlesnake supposedly found in Wisconsin.

That gator in the picture isn’t 23′ long. However, Gatorland USA in Kissimmee, FL had 3 specimans in captivity in 1986 that were over 18′ long and aged at over 80 years old each. 1 of the 3 came in for the feeding show and guys, that thing was big enough to swallow a man whole!!!

The one I thought was a statue or carving was so big around the belly that you could’ve fit a standing, mid-sized pig into that cavity!

This photo and it’s story may have it’s issues, but don’t believe for a moment that the American Alligator can’t get as big as the one in the picture. The body is actually quite thin hanging there and they get thin like that before taking a large meal. They need to slim down to get any speed for their attacks.

A farm in Lake Placid, FL lost 2 cows in one year to an alligator. They were friends of my grandparents and lived 1/2 mile away and they had lakeshore property. COWS guys! They use the tail to break the legs and the cow is an instant feast. But how small do ya figger that gator was?

Gators never stop growing as they continue to age and are believed to live up to and possibly beyond 100 years of age. Thanks to Gatorland burning a few years ago, it’ll be a very long time before we’ll know how long a well fed and cared for gator can live…… and how large it would get.

I lived in Florida 83-84. Had a pool at the house where I lived. We were about 100 yards from a canal, with a tree nursury between the house and the canal. Had a 5 foot chain link surrounding the whole back yard. Woke up one morning and had a 6 footer swimming in the pool. Animal control told me they climb up the fence with their front legs and nose, then push off with their tail to go over the fence. I never would have believed it, but there was absolutely no other way for that gator to get into the pool without going through the house!