• It was dark, but right when I spotted the alligator, I knew it was the biggest one I’d seen in my three years of hunting them. My husband and four friends were with me on the boat, and as we inched within casting range, the gator dove under and vanished. Our group had already killed a big gator that season, but I had a tag I really wanted to fill, so we didn’t give up looking for it. Thirty minutes later, it resurfaced—right in front of us. My husband snagged it, and we got a few more lines on it before it took off. It ran us from bank to bank, pulling hard. Every time it neared the river’s edge, I feared it might break us off…
