By GABE JORDAN

gabe.jordan@gaflnews.com

FLINT RIVER — A Cataula man and three friends nearly got more than they bargained for when an alligator hunt here near Campers Haven turned into a four-hour ordeal with a 680-pound monster that has been confirmed as the new state record.

Shane Wilson said the night of Sept. 12 will be one he never forgets, and he’ll soon have the head of a 13-foot, 7-inch alligator on a wall in his Columbus-area home to prove it.

Wilson, a self-professed “die-hard duck hunter” won the alligator-hunting lottery this fall in more ways than one. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Wildlife Division, which regulates hunting in the state, chose Wilson’s name when drawing quota permits for the alligator season that began Sept. 6 and ends today.

Wilson won the lottery when he received his permit and tag in the mail, but he didn’t think it would lead to him taking a place in Georgia’s hunting record books.

“This was the first gator hunt I’ve ever been on in my life,” Wilson said. “I had been around gators a lot on duck hunts and I’m always, along with my hunting partners, up for new experiences.”

The experience of hunting alligators in Georgia is without question a unique one. Regulations allow hunters to take only one alligator a season, and the reptiles must be at least 48 inches long and can be hunted only with hand-held ropes or snares, snatch hooks, harpoons, gigs or arrows with a restraining line attached. Legal alligators must be dispatched immediately upon capture by using a handgun or bangstick, or by severing the spinal cord with a sharp implement, according to information provided by the DNR.

Wilson and his party were armed with harpoons designed to be thrown by hand and large-caliber handguns. They started out shortly after nightfall in two 16-foot boats in the northern reaches of Lake Blackshear.

Using spotlights to find their prey, Wilson and his friends moved up into the Flint River channel and were having little luck in the beginning.

“We saw a lot of small gators, and when we saw gators that were of legal size, we couldn’t get closer than 100 feet to them,” Wilson said. “We were starting to get discouraged because the bigger gators were acting shy, and we were just about ready to call it a night when the guys in the lead boat told me they saw a set of eyes near the bank.”

Wilson’s contingent decided to abandon the spotlights and use flashlights in hopes that the dimmer light would not spook the older alligators. As they approached the area where the hunters in the lead boat saw the eyes, Wilson said his boat-mate, Randy Pounds of Butler, began arguing that what the others saw was no more than a log.

Shortly after Pounds made his comments about a “log,” Wilson said he realized he was roughly six yards away from a sizable alligator. He readied his harpoon, threw at his target, and soon knew he had gotten hold of a granddaddy.

“We stuck him and he thrashed his tail so hard he just about turned our boat over,” Wilson said. “The guys in the other boat came up and I told them I had just stuck a dinosaur, and they all said, ‘yeah, right’.