Louisiana man captures 760 pound alligator

Jim White captures 760 pound gator in West Baton Rouge Parish (Source: Jim White)

WEST BATON ROUGE PARISH, LA (WAFB) - Jim White, of Ventress, LA, was out hunting alligators Saturday in West Baton Rouge Parish on Solitude Point when he came across one of his lines with something on it. What he found was a 13'4" alligator that weighed 760 pounds.

"I'm and outdoorsman. I hunt and fish. I harvested a lot of animals in my time. I really got fired up when I saw this alligator," said White.

News of record breaking alligator catches have been up in the South, with two massive gators being caught in Mississippi earlier this month. Not to be outdone by Mississippians, the Louisiana native took his catch to the processor and found out the exact weight of the beast; 33 pounds heavier than the MS record.

The Mississippi record for biggest weight is 727 pounds. That record breaking alligator was caught earlier this month by Dustin Brockman of Vicksburg, MS. Just days before Brockman caught his gator, another one was caught in Mississippi weighing in at 723 pounds.

According to Jim, the state of Louisiana does not record weight in their record books, only length. The longest alligator ever caught in Louisiana history was 19'2". His massive gator did not make the record books for length, but the weight of the beast is worth noting. An alligator that weighs 760 pounds is not something we can ignore.

"His back legs was bigger than the size of my body!" Jim said.

There was one problem with this catch, he was in a 16-foot boat and he had a nearly 14 foot alligator to haul.

"I knew that I wasn't going to fit him in a sixteen foot boat." So he lifted the alligator with a tractor and hauled him to the processor.

The gator was taken to a processing plant and will be mounted. According to Jim, the processor at Tim Processing in Morganza, LA says this is the biggest alligator they have ever processed.

Jim White, an engineer technician with the Department of Transportation and Development for the past 35 years, says this is by far the biggest alligator he has ever caught. He has filled 21 tags so far this season and has 16 more to go.

Ask.com states, "The largest alligator ever killed in Louisiana measured approximately 19.2 feet in length. It was killed in 1890 near Vermilion Bay in southern Louisiana and it weighed approximately 2,000 pounds."

The longest captured alligator on record in Mississippi is 13 feet, 6.5 inches.

Alligator hunting season ends around October 4, 2013.

Ventress, LA is about 35 miles northwest of Baton Rouge.