Husband-wife team scores again with huge Santee Cooper gator

Lake Moultrie beast only inch short of 13 feet long.

For the second straight year, a husband-and-wife team has scored on a gargantuan gator in Lake Moultrie. This year, the tag belonged to Mark Christian of Fitchburg, Mass., who had plenty of help from Maryellen Mara-Christian, Bob Parent of Fitchburg and Wayne Curry of Bradenton, Fla.

The group, guided on Sept. 20 by Black Camp’s Kevin Davis, subdued a huge gator measuring only an inch short of 13 feet and weighing 656 pounds.

Davis said the hunt confirmed his belief that sneaking up on a big alligator is getting much more difficult.

“There’s still plenty out there, but those big rascals are smart,” Davis said. “We saw the gator, but had to let him come up about five times before Maryellen made a perfect cast across (its) back and got the first hook in him.

“From that point, it was game on, and things were wild.”

Mara-Christian said there was no doubt it was a team effort. It was on her tag last year that a whopping 13-foot-4½, 1,025-pound alligator was harvested, so she’s no stranger to big gator-getting.

“This alligator was a beast from the start and fought much harder than the giant one last year, even though (it was) not as large,” she said. “We finally got the second snatch hook in him, but he still drug the entire rig to deep water. He settled in about 15 feet deep. It was a series of him being pulled while thrashing and fighting, braking lines and even breaking a heavy fishing pole before we were able to harpoon him.”

But the team finally began to get the upper hand.

“It took a second harpoon into him before we could begin to have some control,” Mara-Christian said. “We were crossing lines, ducking under and over one another, running from one end of the boat to the other, doing everything to get some control over the alligator.”

Davis 9(843.753.2231) said this alligator charged the boat with jaws wide open and bit the side of the boat — the same thing an 11-footer one of his parties killed earlier in the season did.

“It was exciting to be sure,” Davis said. “But after that, he went into his death roll, and that actually was his first big mistake. He got wound up in our ropes, and we finally managed to gain some control.”

Mara-Christian said this adventure was truly a team effort and much more challenging than last year’s monster-sized gator.

“Last year, most of the fight was in the shallows, but when they get in deep water, it’s a whole new experience,” she said. “Without Kevin Davis, his knowledge of alligators and intimate knowledge of the lake, the outcome may have been different.”

“But the day before, another member of our team, Bob Parent, also had a tag, and it was filled, with Kevin guiding, with a 9-foot alligator,” she said. “So the team filled both our tags, making it an extremely successful adventure.”