Never Forget

Zoom in...the faces that died on 9/11.

What does An Alligator Eat - Artifacts?

What does a 750-pound alligator eat? Well, just about anything it wants, but items found in this particular Mississippi alligator's stomach defy odds and date back thousands of years.

Shane Smith, the owner of Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City, Mississippi, said he was examining the contents of a 13-foot, 5-inch alligator that weighed 750 pounds and discovered two unusual objects. One he couldn't identify, but the other was clearly a broken stone arrowhead.

The find was so unexpected, he almost didn't let the news out.

"At first, I thought 'I'm not posting this on Facebook,' because no one will believe it," Smith said.

Then, he had second thoughts.

(From left) Jordan Hackl of Warrensburg, Illinois, John Hamilton of Raleigh, Todd Hollingsworth, and Landon Hollingsworth, both of Mize, pose with an alligator they caught In Mississippi on September 2, 2021. Artifacts dating as far back as an estimated 6000 BC were found in the alligator's stomach. Special to Clarion-Ledger

"This is too cool not to post on Facebook," he said. "This has probably never happened before. We gotta post this."

Dog tags in an alligator's stomach

The story first began to unfold in April when a wild game processor in South Carolina reported opening the stomach of an alligator and finding unusual items. Smith read it and was skeptical.

"The curiosity struck me when I saw a post online about someone finding dog stages in an alligator's stomach," Smith said.

The first was a 13-foot, 2-inch, 787-pound gator taken by Ty Powell of Columbia, Mississippi.

"We found a bullet in it, and it had not been fired from a gun," Smith said. "I don't know how it got in there."

The second alligator he opened, which was harvested at Eagle Lake, located 15 miles northwest of Vicksburg on the Mississippi and Louisiana border, contained many of the things the first did, including bones, hair, feathers, and stones. Then, something else caught his eye.

A prehistoric projectile point and another prehistoric object known as a plummet were discovered in the stomach of a 13-foot, 5-inch Mississippi alligator. Shane Smith/Special to Clarion-Ledger

A find like no other

"Everybody was standing around like I was opening a Christmas present," Smith said. "We kind of put it all in a bin.

"I looked over and saw a rock with a different tint to it. It was the arrowhead."

Smith said he was dumbfounded.

"It was just disbelief," Smith said. "There's just no way he had an arrowhead. Your first thought is it ate (a Native American) or (a Native American) shot it in the stomach."

Smith knew that wasn't the case, though.

"My best hypothesis is wherever he scooped up those other rocks, he got that (Native American) point," Smith said. "We joked about it and said I'm probably the only person on Earth to pull an arrowhead out of an alligator's stomach."

Point dates back thousands of years

James Starnes, director of Surface Geology and Surface Mapping for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, examined a photograph of the point. He estimated it was made about 5000-6000 BC.

'That is the latter part of the Early Archaic and early part of the Middle Archaic (periods)," Starnes said. "How the base is made is real tell-tale in estimating the time period."

Starnes also noted the object is not an arrowhead. It's a point used on an early weapon that launches a spear using a second piece of wood with a cup on one end which acts as a lever to increase velocity.

"That's an atlatl dart point," Starnes said. "People think all heads are arrowheads, but those (arrowheads) would be the little bitty points."

As bizarre as the find was, it was about to get even stranger. Smith found a heavy, tear-shaped object roughly 1½ inches in length. Both he and the hunter who was permitted to harvested the alligator thought it was something more modern — a lead weight used for fishing.

"It's heavy as lead," Hamilton said. "It looks like it's got two holes in it, but they don't go through it.

"It's got a little hole and a bigger hole on top. I guess it goes in and comes back out."

What's a plummet, and why would an alligator eat it?

Starnes said it's known as a plummet and dates back to the Late Archaic Period, or about 1700 BC.

The weight is accounted for because it's made of hematite, an iron oxide traded between early groups and shines when polished. Starnes said what the purpose plummets served is unknown.

"The plummets, we really have no idea what they were used for," Starnes said. "These things had some significance, but we have no idea. We can only guess."

So, how did these ancient objects get into the alligator's belly? Ricky Flynt, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Alligator Program coordinator, explained very hard objects, typically stones, aid the reptile's indigestion.

"Alligators, like other animals such as birds and other reptiles, are known for ingesting grit and rocks to help with digestion," Flynt said. "We know alligators and crocodiles do that."

However, alligators differ from fowl such as chickens and ducks. Those animals have gizzards and the grit and sand are stored there to help grind seeds and grains they consume. Alligators don't have gizzards and the stones go into the stomach.

"Sticks, wood; things they can't digest get into their stomachs," Flynt said. "I found a piece of cypress in an alligator's stomach that was 15 inches long."

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion-Ledger: How did artifacts, thousands of years old, turn up in a Mississippi alligator's stomach?

Asher Is Four Months Old

Look who turned four months old yesterday! My precious 5th great-grandson, Asher! Great Gran Gran loves you so much! xoxo   (Asher lives with his Mom and Dad at Grand Forks AFB, ND)

Tidus Scuba Diving at Melita Island, MT

Here are some pictures of my Great Grandson Tidus at Melita Island, Lolo, MT,  for a scuba diving weekend.  I’m so proud of him.  Tidus lives in Great Falls, MT, and is 14 years old.

I'm glad Tidus had a rewarding Labor Day weekend.

Ty Powell's Big Gator

Alligator season is always caused for excitement and it was especially so for first-time hunter Ty Powell of Columbia, Mississippi. What he didn't know is he and his friends would tangle with almost 800 pounds of an apex predator.

"We were on the Yazoo River north of Redwood," Powell said. "We probably saw 15 or 20 on the way up, but we had that spot marked and were headed there."

It was an alligator fellow hunters Kent Britton, Adam Steen, and Bubba Steen had located earlier.

"We had known about this alligator a month before," Britton said. "We had him pinned on our phones along with another alligator."

Britton and his crew went after the other alligator on Friday night because they felt it was the larger of the two and were able to get him in their boat.

And it was a big gator. It measured 12 feet, 8 inches, and weighed over 500 pounds. On Saturday night, the trio joined Powell and Eli Frierson to try to find the gator they felt was not as large.

Unfortunately, when they arrived at the marked spot, the gator didn't seem to be around. There were three sets of eyes visible in the area, but all of them belonged to small gators.

(From left) Eli Frierson of Starkville, Adam Steen of Ethel, Bubba Steen of Ethel, Kent Britton of Poplar Creek, and Ty Powell of Columbia are photographed with a 787-pound alligator they caught in the Yazoo River on Aug. 29, 2021. Special to Clarion-Ledger

He's one lucky alligator hunter

Had the gator disappeared? Had someone already caught him? Powell is too lucky for that.

Getting an alligator possession permit is done by a drawing and thousands apply each year for one of coveted 920 permits. Some apply year after year and aren't drawn, but not Powell. It was his first year to apply and he was drawn.

"They told me to go buy a lottery ticket because I was the luckiest man in Mississippi that day," Powell said.

And his luck was just getting started. The hunting party continued upriver, then cut the boat motors off and quietly drifted back through the area where the gator had been spotted.

"When we got back down there, there was another set of eyes," Powell said.

It was the gator they were looking for and one of the team members hooked him with a rod and reel and handed it off to Powell. The gator pulled the boat Powell was in up and down the river until he wrapped the line around a log and got off.

Powell's emotions sank.

"It's a little bit of helplessness," Powell said. "You don't know if you're going to get another chance at him. When you feel that line loosen up real quick, it's an 'Oh, no' feeling."

Even big gators make mistakes

Bubba Steen still felt confident about the situation.

"That's happened to me before," Steen said. "About four or five years ago, I and Eli were on the river and had one.

"He got off six times. We stayed after him all night. We've had them get away before, but usually if you just stay after them and eventually he'll make a mistake. I said, 'Let's stay after him and we'll get him.'"

And they did.

Ty Powell said when he first got a look at the alligator's head, he knew it was big. The alligator weighed 787 pounds and was 13-feet, 2-inches long. Special to Clarion-Ledger

"He popped up about 30 to 40 yards between us," Britton said. "I and Eli hooked him at the same time from two different vessels.

"As soon as I hooked him, we got the boats together and I passed my pole to Ty so they could fight him from the same boat. He popped up 20 minutes later and I got another line on him."

The fight takes a toll on gators and hunters

With three lines on the gator, it would seem to be a sure bet he was as good as caught, but the strain of the alligator dragging the boat up and down the river began to take its toll on their gear.

"We had one guy with a broken rod, me with a broken reel and one good rod on him," Powell said. "We were just holding on and praying at that point."

About three hours had elapsed since the hunters initially hooked the alligator and he was beginning to tire. The hunters got a hand-line on him and were able to bring him to the side of the boat, secure and dispatch him. However, the fight wasn't over.

"Just to get him from the side of the boat into the boat took all five of us about 30 minutes," Powell said. "I think we floated a mile or two down the river trying to catch our breath after that."

With the gator in the boat, the hunters realized it was much larger than the 12-foot, 8-inch alligator Britton and Bubba and Adam Steen had caught the previous night, but they didn't know how much bigger until they took it to a processor.

An alligator that could have been longer

The gator was 13-feet, 2-inches long with a belly girth of 66 inches and a 48-inch tail girth. On the scale, he hit 787 pounds.

"We were all in shock," Powell said. "He was also missing part of his tail. I know 13-2 is huge, but at one time he was bigger than that."

At the same time, Britton realized how much he and Bubba and the Steens had misjudged the sizes of the two alligators.

"We were off about 300 pounds and six inches," Britton said. "The 13-2 was missing six inches of tail, if not more."

For Powell, it was an experience he'll never forget.

"I'm still excited and shaking about it," Powell said. "This is the first time I've put in for alligator tags or even thought about it and something happens like this.

"It was the hunt of a lifetime. These four guys that were with me, I can't thank them enough for helping me get that gator. I really need to go buy that lottery ticket."

But what does one do with almost 800 pounds of muscle, teeth, and hide? Powell said all of it will be utilized in one way or another.

"Nothing will go to waste on this gator," Powell said. "From the head to the hide to the meat, I'm saving all of it."  

This article originally appeared in Mississippi Clarion-Ledger

The American Queen Is Safe & Sound

Here is a picture I took of the American Queen on Friday, August 13, 2021, while moored north of the waterfront in Vicksburg, MS.  This is her first trip in a year and a half because of COVID-19.  It was so good to see her again.  Her destination was Paducah, KY.  

On her way back down south, we had Hurricane Ida hit the New Orleans area and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  When I checked to see if she was at the waterfront this past Wednesday she did not show up as scheduled.  

Using my app, FindShip, I saw where she was coming from Greenville, and making her way south.  At 2:00 p.m. she arrived in Vicksburg.

Instead of docking, she went straight to the Port of Vicksburg where she is today.  I guess she will remain there until New Orleans is back up and running.  (Update: Found out she was there for repairs)

It's been a rough almost two years for all of us, and I hope we can get back to some kind of normalcy one day.  Until then, the Queen is in a safe place in our historic civil war town of Vicksburg, MS.

(September 9, 2021, the American Queen is headed to Tunica, MS, and then onto Memphis, TN)

A Woman Stops 12 Ft. Gator With .22 Pistol

A woman stops 12 ft gator with a .22 pistol!

"Florida Woman Stops Alligator Attack Using a small .22 caliber Ruger Pistol." Another good reason to have a concealed weapons permit.

This is a story of self-control and marksmanship by a brave, cool-headed woman with a small pistol against a fierce predator.

Here's her story in her own words: "While walking along the edge of a pond just outside my house in the Villages discussing a property settlement with my soon-to-be ex-husband, and other divorce issues, we were surprised by a huge 12-ft alligator which suddenly emerged from the murky water.

It began charging us with its large jaws wide open. She must have been protecting her nest because she was extremely aggressive.

"If I had not had my little Ruger .22 caliber pistol with me, I would not be here today! Just one shot to my estranged husband's knee cap was all it took.

The gator got him easily, and I was able to escape by just walking away at a brisk pace. The amount I saved in lawyer's fees was really incredible and his life insurance was also a big bonus!" 

Florida Alligator Hunt- Melissa Bachman

( http://www.MelissaBachman.com)

The 2021 Public Waters Alligator Hunting Season opens in Mississippi Friday, Aug. 27, at noon. The 10-day season will close at noon on Monday, Sept. 6.