Tyler Emfinger of Bentonia and Trey Davis of Flora used pliers to land this 13-foot, 2-inch alligator weighing 617 pounds.
A massive alligator weighing 617 pounds and measuring 13 feet, 2 inches gave a pair of Mississippi hunters the slip two nights in a row. Facing the same possible outcome the third night, the hunters turned to something odd for help — pliers.
"We saw lots of smaller gators and one that's about 12 feet," said Tyler Emfinger of Bentonia. "I'd been chasing him three days straight, so we weren't trying to catch anything but him.
"We had hooked him two days in a row. He went under logs and pulled off. It was very frustrating."
On Sept. 2, the alligator wasn't where Emfinger and hunting partner Trey Davis of Flora expected to find him. He'd been spotted in the same general area of Dump Lake the previous nights, but it appeared he'd grown tired of the hunters and relocated. So, the hunters moved along, too.
"We went east to the other end of the lake," Emfinger said. "It's hard to get into.
"There's a lot of weeds and grass. The high water had killed a lot of the lily pads, so there's some open areas. Once you break through it, it opens up."
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That's where the big alligator was. Emfinger cast at him, but missed and his hook became tangled in weeds. The alligator submerged.
Emfinger's light was turned off, but it was a moonlit night and he soon saw a wake on the water's surface. Seeing where the alligator was going, the two moved the boat to get ahead of him.
"As soon as he turned sideways I cast and hooked him," Emfinger said. "He went under.
"He just slowly pulled us along and then he took off. He went under some logs again and laid down. I could see bubbles coming up, so I knew where he was."
Emfinger was in an all too familiar predicament. He was on one side of the logs and the alligator on the other. He also couldn't slide his rod under the logs and grab it on the other side.
"If there's room under the log you can run the rod under it to the other side," Davis said. "There's so many logs in that lake, it's common to deal with that. There was no clearance to get the rod under it."
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The two moved so they could grab the line on the opposite side of the log. Davis then wrapped the line around the handles of Channellock pliers and secured it. They cut the line between the pliers and the rod, tied the ends of the line together using an Alberto knot and the fight resumed.
It wasn't the first time the hunters had resorted to the trick. Davis also had tags for alligators and the two found themselves in a similar situation the previous night.
"I'd shot a 10-foot, 5-inch the night before," Davis said. "He did the same thing.
"He went under a log. Tyler said, 'Grab something to wrap the line around.' That was the only thing we could find to wrap the line around to keep it tight. That's when we learned that. We did it two nights in a row and we were two for two on that. It was a huge gamble, but it paid off."
Emfinger got his gator, but now he had another problem — it was bigger than he thought and bigger than his boat could handle.
"He was way bigger, way bigger," Emfinger said. "I knew he was the biggest one I've ever killed.
"We couldn't get him in our boat. I have a 14-foot, V-bottom Jon boat."
Fortunately, Emfinger had a friend who was also hunting and was in a bigger boat. It almost wasn't enough, either.
"It took four of us to get him in the boat," Emfinger said. "It was a 19-foot boat and it took on about a foot of water.
"We had three people on one side and the gator and the back corner went under. I thought we were about to sink it. We had to bilge it out."
So, with a little luck, the help of friends and a pair of pliers, Emfinger finally landed his biggest alligator to date.
"It was a miracle in the making," Emfinger said. "That's for sure."
Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.
