- Dan Brown /The Berkeley Independent, www.berkeleyind.com
Posted on 09/18/2010 4:02:57 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Mary Ellen Mara-Christian is only five feet, five inches tall, weighing in at 115 pounds. She's looks small, but this week she proved she can take on a lot.
Mara-Christian killed a 13-foot, six-inch, 1,025-pound alligator during South Carolina's alligator hunting season.
How did she do it?
In an exclusive interview on "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," Mara-Christian explained she was out on a boat on Lake Moultrie with her husband and a few friends when she hooked the alligator with her heavy-duty fishing pole.
"We stuck him with a harpoon," she said. "We had two lines on him, we got him with a harpoon."
Mara-Christian said they had no idea how big the gator was. She said others estimated the gator was 10 feet long; it turned out to be three feet longer.
"I had no idea he was that big," she said.
But how did they reel him in?
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
With her BARE hands....
Go show us your stuff bigshot.
Oh, and we want sharp camera work in H.264 format.
Why the put down? The fact that she got onto the boat is more than most men or women had done. Like fishing most fishermen will have help on the boat with them when fishing for larger fish. And the person who hooks it gets the catch. Anybody would show off a large catch. Just because the news media got all excited doesn’t make it less of a catch.
Why didn’t they just cut the line and let the gator go???? why did they kill it? Was in it’s own habitat...they hooked the gator...they should have let it go!!!!
A kid could kill a gator with a gun or a harpoon. Big deal.
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You are seriously underestimating a 13 foot gator. They weigh about 900 pounds at that length and can capsize a boat. They are almost impossible to get into a boat at that size as well (for a few people anyway).
Why didn’t they just cut the line and let the gator go???? why did they kill it? Was in it’s own habitat...they hooked the gator...they should have let it go!!!!
Because she drew a gator tag and she legally harvested a tasty gator to munch on for the year. Good for her and her helpers. I have eaten gator and it is good.
You should only use dynamite when you suspect that the meat is going to be tough and stringy.
Congratulations to the woman for legally utilizing a renewable resource. They say alligator meat is great, and alligator fat is horrid. There are actually alligator farms in southern Idaho that use hot springs to keep them warm. I want to take a tour some day.
I’m putting her down because it’s a phony story. A five foot woman didn’t catch and kill a gator- she, her husband and who knows how many other people did it. And considering she’s from MA. and not South Carolina, I’m beginning to wonder if she and her friends did this on their own or are they just some tourists who hired a professional gator hunter to “help” them.
I think she’s set for life!
What a terrible article. There is no mention of what the party intends to do with the meat or hide. And there is little to chronicle the struggle that a 13 footer would give. “How did they reel him in?” is one question. For crying out loud, this is not a fish. You have to kill him outside the boat!
The comments are horrendous. “Wish she had fallen overboard before she killed it.”, “I think it would have been more entertaining if the story had a different outcome like:
IGNORANT MURDEROUS BAGGER GETS EATEN BY GATOR WHO WAS ATTACKED FOR NO REASON”.
Do these people not understand how much territory a 13 footer will command, protecting hunting grounds and breeding females? Taking him out allowed a few young males in who would otherwise be testing territory in residential areas eating dogs and perhaps small children who ventured too close to canals.
Why kill it?
$30 per foot for skins and $5 per pound for meat is what I could find for current prices for alligator.
Good metaphor for November 2nd. Too bad it wasn't a rhino.
My kin folk used dogs for gator bait...
Mass. woman bags 1,025-pound alligator in SC lake
COLUMBIA, S.C. --Experienced hunter Maryellen Mara-Christian of Massachusetts says she was excited to get her first alligator on a hunt this week in South Carolina.
Hooking and killing the 1,025 pound, 13 1/2-foot gator has made her something of a celebrity.
"He was just a big old gator," she said Friday by phone from a hotel in Washington, D.C., where she will be interviewed on a morning news show Saturday. "The hunt of a lifetime, I'd say."
The 48-year-old laid-off bank marketing officer from Fitchburg, Mass., was hunting Wednesday with her husband, Mark, who is a firefighter in Massachusetts and a part-time hunting guide in Maine, and Lake Moultrie guide Kevin Davis.
"I came down to South Carolina hoping for a 10-footer and I just lucked out to may have gotten one of the biggest ones people have ever seen," Mara-Christian said.
Alligator hunting is part hunting, part fishing. Hunters use a regular fishing pole with a heavy line and a large snatch hook. They try to get several hooks in the alligator to get him close to the boat so they can shoot or harpoon them. It is illegal in South Carolina for a hunter to shoot a free swimming alligator.
It took about two hours for Mara-Christian's party to secure the gator before they could shoot it. But the .22-caliber gun they had wasn't powerful enough to put the animal down so Mara-Christian used a knife to sever the animal's spinal cord at the base of its head...
This could be the basis of a nice “Christine O’Donnell captures Karl Rove” image...
With her BARE hands....
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
No, you are thinking of Davy Crockett...
“”KILT HIM A B’AR WHEN HE WAS ONLY 3””
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