Teamster snags a Miss. monster!

A night-long battle in the Mississippi River yielded record results for one Teamster. Local 891 member Dustin Bockman captured the heaviest alligator in Mississippi history when he pulled in a 727-pound gator.


Bockman's record-setting gator.

After five hours of searching the inky black river during the first weekend of hunting season, Dustin Bockman, his brother Ryan Bockman (also a Local 891 Teamster), and friend Cole Landers finally caught sight of the behemoth. The story is even more amazing when you realize Dustin was on his first-ever gator hunt:

My friends were just like, ‘Oh my god, it’s so huge.’ You couldn’t fold him in half to put him in the truck.

The team gave chase for more than two hours. Finally around 3 a.m., they managed to tether it to a fishing pole and then a snare. The fishing line broke.  Bockman’s team managed to get another line around the alligator. It also broke. After two hours and more snapped lines, Dustin Bockman finally ended the chase with a shot from a crossbow.

At 13 feet, 4 inches, their catch was almost the size of the team’s boat. After three hours straining to haul the animal aboard, they gave up and called in reinforcements. State wildlife authorities confirmed Bockman’s new record four hours after another record-breaking hopeful had hauled back a 723.5-pound catch.

Bockman plans to hand out most of the alligator meat to friends and cook the rest himself. After all, the hunting season has just begun.