Arkansas Sportsman

Gator hunt thrills Roland sportsman

Lance Williams of Roland (far left) killed this 9-foot, 7-inch alligator Friday near Mineral Springs with help from (from right) Chris Dillman, Jonathan Gaither and Burt Burris.
Lance Williams of Roland (far left) killed this 9-foot, 7-inch alligator Friday near Mineral Springs with help from (from right) Chris Dillman, Jonathan Gaither and Burt Burris.

Lance Williams of Roland has enjoyed some memorable deer hunts in Arkansas, but none compared to his first alligator hunt Friday near Mineral Springs.

Williams, a heating and air contractor, has applied for an alligator hunting permit since 2007, when the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission opened an alligator season. He finally won a permit this year to hunt on private property, and a landowner gave him permission to hunt a slough in Howard County.

Because of the time and distance involved, he was only able to scout the area twice. Since alligators are largely nocturnal, he didn't see many, but he did see a big one. It was the gator he eventually killed.

Assisting Williams that night were Chris Dillman of Little Rock, Jonathan Gaither of Sardis and Burt Burris of Roland.

"We got down there about 10 o'clock Friday night," Williams said. "We saw that gator as soon as we got on the water. It was the first one we saw. He went down, so we just kept going down the swamp."

Williams and his crew saw six more alligators, about one every hundred yards or so.

"They were all 5, 6, 7 feet long. Nothing I wanted to harvest," Williams said.

With so many gators about, Williams felt optimistic about his prospects until another crew of gator hunters roared up in a mud boat with a deafening surface drive engine.

"Out of 60 tags, wouldn't you know somebody else got one that was hunting the same water as us?" Williams said. "That kind of crushed our momentum."

The other crew continued elsewhere, and Williams turned back to find the big gator. They waited about 90 minutes for it to resurface, and it took only a glimpse to convince Williams it was the one he wanted.

"That was the only one that I wasn't sure how big it was," Williams said. "I got good eyes on the other ones, and I put a harpoon in him as soon as I seen him."

The gator dragged the boat around for about 30 minutes until it came up long enough for Williams to harpoon it a second time. Then he finished it off with a round from a 12-gauge shotgun.

It was 9 feet, 7 inches long.

The gator spared Williams and his crew the theatrics that often occur in these fights. Everyone kept their balance and kept their hands and feet clear of the lines. It was, compared to most of the gator stories we've heard, a clean dispatch, but the gator still got in its licks.

"We were lucky we all stayed in the boat," Williams said. "There were a few times when we thought he was going to tip the boat on us."

Little of this gator will go to waste, Williams said. He said he's going to eat the meat, and he'll make a European mount of the skull. He caped out the hide, rolled it up and put it in a freezer for safekeeping. When he gets the time, he said he will tan the hide.

If he ever draws another tag, Williams said he won't kill a gator smaller than 12 feet. From the scars on his 9-footer, Williams said he knows there are some bigger ones in the area.

In the meantime, Williams said he's going to enjoy the memory of this hunt for a lifetime.

"It more than lived up to my expectations," Williams said. "I'll be 32 years old this year. I've hunted just about everything, but I never dreamed I'd kill a gator in Arkansas."

Sports on 09/22/2016

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