McClendon takes first alligator of Arkansas hunt
By JOE MOSBY

This 550-pound alligator was killed by John McClendon (straddling its head) in the first Arkansas alligator hunt. His helpers were (from left) Patrick Harris, his father, Zach McClendon, and Anthony Brown.

John McClendon of Monticello has had a thing about alligators for 3 1/2 decades - since he was 5 years old.

He's seen them up close and personal, starting with the early days of gator restoration in Arkansas. It is understandable that he was quick to apply for a permit in Arkansas' first alligator hunt this year, and it is understandable that McClendon is proud to have scored.

His alligator taken in late September was the first of the hunt, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officials said. It was a "big 'un," just an inch shorter than the largest brought in by the first-season hunters.

McClendon's gator was 12 feet, 8 inches long and weighed an estimated 550 pounds. It was taken on the McClendon family's camp property in southeastern Arkansas. They knew the gator. They had seen it numerous times, and it was a nuisance. Twelve house cats that lived around the camp had dwindled to three.

John McClendon had the hunting permit, and his helpers were Patrick Harris, Anthony Brown and his dad, Zach Mc- Clendon.

Here is John McClendon describing the taking of the monster alligator:

"During the mandatory prehunt training seminar by the AGFC, it was recommended to use a 72-inch beaver snare. After some careful student of this particular alligator, we also put together an additional 80-inch snare. Our plan was simple. The gator was lying near a dock, and we would attempt to snare him, dispatch him and then use a boat to get him to the bank.

"I started with the 80-inch snare on a 10-foot pole and carefully started to slip it over the top of his nose and back toward his neck. An 80-inch snare is not near big enough to pass over a 550-pound alligator's far jowls. The snare stopped somewhere short of the back of his jaw, and the gator, now alert to something amiss, started to slip backward down into the water.

"I yanked as hard as I could on the rope, freeing it from the pole, and held on for dear life. The snare closed up somewhere around mid-snout, but the snare itself was on the tip of his snout rather than the side, creating a slight V in the wire that allowed him enough jaw movement to move his mouth a little. He was threshing but not spinning in the death roll we all hear so much about. I passed the first line off to Patrick, and we immediately got another snare on the snout.

"At this point we had him with two snares under incredible tension. The first line was wrapped in the dock somehow, and we only had control of movement on the second line. We had his head held up with the second line. He had stopped threshing, and we had a clean shot. The regulations call for a 12-gauge with shot no larger than No. 4. I leveled the Remington 870 about three feet from his head and tried to visualize where the spinal cord met the base of the brain. I squeezed the trigger, and the water erupted into a mosaic of whit water, ga- tor meat and blood. I jacked another round in and let the second shot fly into the same spot as the first. I saw Anthony tense even more with the now dead weight on the line."

McClendon said he jumped in a boat and with difficulty the crew got a third snare over the gator's snout. They hauled the gator up against the bottom of the boat, and McClendon drove it to the bank, boat on top of the alligator.

McClendon said, "He was definitely dead but twitching randomly and flicking his tail like a snake with its head cut off. I knelt across his jaws, and Anthony handed me the duct tape. With a dose of tape around the jaws, I finally took a breath after what seemed like hours.

"We brought a tractor with a front end loader around and secured new ropes to the gator to slide him up the bank. As soon as he was on dry ground, I ziptied the permit tag to his tail under the supervision of the Game and Fish enforcement officers who were on hand."

McClendon added, "The old gator we killed had become a nuisance and a potential danger over the years, but because of the alligator hunt program, we were able to remove him safely and partake in a once in a lifetime opportunity at the same time."

Next week: John McClendon tells of his earlier alligator encounters in Southeast Arkansas.

-------

Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback. com.