Florida Fisherman Catches 1,008-Pound Gator

A huge alligator stalked the river behind Corey Capps' Florida home for three years, as the fisherman imagined one day catching it. "Three different times in the last two months, I've been back there fishing and he's stalked me. ... So me and him, something was going to give between the two of us," Capps tells CNN. Something did give, in a big way, on Oct. 12 when Capps and his wife, on a boat ride on the Apalachicola River, spotted the massive gator on the bank. Capps returned to the spot with a friend who has state-issued gator tags the following day, and they legally bagged the reptile.

"We went out and harpooned him," Capps says; WJHG reports they also used a bang stick to kill the gator. "We didn't realize—we knew he was big, but not as big as when we pulled him up that bank. Across the top of his head was 16 inches wide." He was more than 13 feet long and weighed 1,008 pounds; it took the men three hours to move him 100 feet using their 12-foot boat. The heaviest gator ever caught in the state weighed 1,043 pounds; the longest one ever caught was 14 feet, 3.5 inches. Capps sold most of the gator to a processing business, but will mount the head and front legs. (More Florida stories.)