ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA: A Florida man created history by catching the state’s second-heaviest alligator weighing 920 pounds. On Friday, September 1, Florida man Kevin Brotz hunted the 13-foot, 3 ¼ inch long alligator after four hours of struggle, per CBS Miami.
The hunt was led by Brotz who was accompanied by his two other friends, Darren Field and Carson Gore.
Who is Kevin Brotz?
Kevin Brotz is a resident of Orange County, and who has been a licensed charter captain for about 20 years. He also runs Florida Gator Hunting. Describing the exhilarating experience of putting down the second-heaviest alligator of the state, Brotz said, "I had fear like I never felt before.”
He added, "I've lived here my whole life, and I think about gators, but I've never really experienced this.”
Per Fox 35, Brotz further said, "I mean, I can wholeheartedly say that and still keep my man card," before adding, "It was absolutely insane."
Talking about the help that he got from his friends, he said, "You got three guys on the side of a jumbo in a 1,000-pound gator weighing you down.”
The weight of the gator also put the boat in a tight spot as he said to the outlet, “There's like this much boat above the water," while pressing his fingers together.
He described the ordeal to CBS Miami, where he said, “Honestly, my first concern was safety because we were in a smaller boat.”
He elaborated, "And then you add a gator whose head is this big. All he has to do is turn, and we're in trouble. So immediately, all we kept saying, all I kept saying was, 'Guys, we have to be smart. We have to play this safe.'”
He later praised his two companions and said, “And I couldn't have been with better people."
‘It was a giant dinosaur’
One of Brotz’s companions, Darren Field, admitted the gator was bigger than anything they have ever encountered. To CBS Miami, he said, "When we saw this gator, it was way bigger than anything we've ever caught before.”
He added, "It was a giant dinosaur. Not every day you get a giant dinosaur in your boat."
Another companion Carson Gore said, "I laid down in the front of the boat and said, 'Alright, I have to lay down until we get back,' because I thought I was going to die. That thing was huge.”
Where did the Florida man find the alligator?
Saying that they found the alligator in the Orlando area, Brotz said, "Ultimately, if a beast of that size gets a hold of you or, God forbid, a child, the odds are tough.”
While he is a skilled harvester, Brotz admits he doesn’t feel good about killing an animal. He said, "I don't ever feel good about killing an animal. But with that being said, I respect the harvest.”
Nevertheless, he respects the catch, explaining, "Tags are allocated to balance the population out of control.”
Using a reference from Disney, he said, “We've all seen what happened at Disney. We've all seen what happened elsewhere. These are killing machines.”
He quipped, “They can, not that they want to, but it does happen. So we need to balance the population as well, so that's how we look at it."
Brotz further added that the entire experience was humbling, "I mean, I've grown up in Florida, never been afraid of gators, you know, swam in the same waters that we hunt. And every year I get a little more leery because I see things that I'm like, all right, we shouldn't be so brave in the water."
