Bo Storey was practicing for a bass fishing tournament when he suddenly realized he was bait.
A very hungry 10-foot, 360-pound alligator was speeding toward his tiny kayak.
“I was just going down the bank fishing and all of a sudden about 10 feet away I seen the big gator,” the Augusta, Georgia man tells WRDW.
“I just paddled and paddled, it came within probably 5 feet of the back of my kayak like up on a plane surging, coming at me and I just non stop paddled til I got to my truck,” Storey said.
Richmond County Sheriff’s deputies were soon on the scene, and got some help from local residents to wrangle the gator.
Local resident Robbie Amerson was driving by the pond when he spotted the deputies. He pulled over and when he learned they were looking for an alligator, he called his friend Trey Durant, a licensed gator trapper.
“I called my buddy, Trey, which is a veteran and he had an alligator tag, so I called him and we proceeded to get him,” said Amerson.
It took a couple of hours, but the men were able to find and trap the gator. Alligators normally avoid humans, and any alligator that loses its fear of humans and seeks them for food is considered a nuisance and killed.
Amerson and Durant are friends of Storey, and were not aware he was the one targeted by the gator. Storey was pleased to later learn his buddies were the ones who caught the gator.
The alligator will be processed and its meat donated.
