The Pearl River flood made it possible for two Mississippi men to harvest an alligator that has eluded hunters for years and break the state record for longest female alligator.
It’s an alligator known as Yellow 410. It was tagged in 2009 and could be 75-100 years old.
It was the first season of alligator hunting for brothers Jim and Richie Denson of Madison and it didn’t start off well.
“We probably threw on five or six on Friday and couldn’t get hooked up,” Richie said. “We just didn’t know what we were doing.”
Saturday didn’t work out any better, but their luck changed on Sunday.
“I was actually in my living room watching TV and my fishing partner, who was fishing with his wife, called me,” Jim said.
Jim’s fishing partner was in a backwater lake that is upriver at Ross Barnett Reservoir. It’s an area typically unaccessible to anglers, but the Pearl River flood provided access by flushing out mats of vegetation that previously choked it.
“My fishing partner had never been able to get in that lake,” Jim said. “So, he goes in there fishing and his wife said, ‘Mike, there’s an alligator.’
“He watched it for about 10 minutes and called me. He said it was about 10 feet long.”
Jim got his boat and equipment ready and he and Richie went to the reservoir to try again.
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“It took us right at one hour from when he called me and when I got there,” Jim said. “We started talking quietly and the alligator swam out.”
The brothers decided to get closer to the alligator so they could snag it with rods and reels, but there was an issue with the trolling motor and it was making noise. Even so, the alligator didn’t seem nervous and didn’t submerge, so the two were able to get within casting distance.
The situation was looking good — for a minute.
“We made two excited casts and threw way over it,” Jim said. “She went under. We were disgusted.”
Another gator came along soon after, though. Jim and Richie both hooked it, but the hooks came loose and their lines became a tangled mess in the process.
The frustration was mounting.
“I told my brother Richie I was ready to burn these tags and quit,” Jim said.
That may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasn’t and they didn’t. Shortly after the big gator appeared again.
“I hooked up and Richie’s missed somehow,” Jim said. “She towed us about 20 to 30 feet and sat on the bottom.”
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Alligator goes ‘absolutely crazy’
Richie snagged the gator with a hand line and the alligator became a little more active.
“She went absolutely crazy,” Jim said. “She went into a death roll and wrapped the rod around her three times and broke the rod.”
Meanwhile, Richie was having issues of his own. He was caught in the hand line.
“I looked down and it was on my finger,” Richie said. “The rope was tangled around my finger. It was scary for a moment.”
Jim was able to get a cable around the animal, which was tangled in line, rope and a broken rod, and secure and dispatch it.
“How we got it, I don’t know,” Richie said. “It was a big, old mess. It was chaotic. It was crazy for a few minutes.”
When things settled down, Richie noticed the alligator was tagged. The tags were old and difficult to read, but they could see the yellow tag had 410 printed on it.
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A world-class alligator
When they arrived at Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City, they made another discovery; it was female measuring over 10 feet, which could make a state record for longest female.
Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks’ Alligator Program coordinator Ricky Flynt was called. It was an alligator he was very familiar with. He captured and tagged her in 2009.
At the time, she was 10 feet, 2 inches long, which put her in a tie for the longest wild female alligator ever recorded. She has since lost that title to a 10-foot, 6.75-inch female captured in Florida last year.
Surprisingly, Yellow 410 was the same length as she was in 2009. She had not grown an inch since then, but she is officially the state record for longest female.
By weight, she appeared to be in decline. Flynt said she had lost 5 inches of belly girth and 1 inch of tail girth since 2009. She only weighed 193 pounds. For comparison, the previous longest female state record measured 10 feet and weighed 319 pounds.
Flynt also said the alligator was harvested in the same area where she was initially captured.
“It was within 100 yards of where I tagged it,” Flynt said. “I figured she wasn’t going far.”
Alligator could be 100 years old
According to Flynt, females grow slower than males and are much smaller. For her to reach 10 feet, 2 inches would take more than 60 years by his calculations. He based that calculation on the alligator growing 2 inches a year, which he said is a liberal estimate for a female. Then there is the fact she maintained that length for at least 13 years.
That provided enlightening information about her.
“It is certainly conceivable this alligator could be 75 to 100 years old,” Flynt said. “I don’t think anyone can argue that.”
According to MDWFP, more than 800 alligators have been captured and tagged in Mississippi since 2007. Flynt said the recapture of these alligators provides valuable insight into the species.
“There’s so much we don’t know about alligators in the wild,” Flynt said. “Fortunately, in this situation, we’ve got information on 13 years of her life.
“That was the point of the program — to get this data. We are always learning about wildlife and there are surprises. I’d say this was one of them.”
Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or [email protected].
