Marine Reservists Capture Record 792 Pound Gator

Marine sergeant and friends bag record-setting alligator
Military Times
By Joshua Stewart
Staff writer
September 18, 2014

Sgt. Jesse Phillips, inset, a mortarman with 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, hunted a 792-pound alligator, with two of his friends. It measured more than 13-feet from the tip of the nose to the tail, and broke a Mississippi state record. (Courtesy of Jesse Phillips)

The next time Sgt. Jesse Phillips has to train in the swamp, he’ll be all too familiar with the type of beasts that might be slithering around his boots.

The mortarman with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, an Alabama-based Reserve unit, made history on Sept. 2 when he and his friends caught a 792-pound alligator in Mississippi. The gator measured in at nearly 13 ½ feet from nose to tail, had a belly that was 69 ¼ inches in girth, and a tail that spanned 51 inches around.

It was the first time the sergeant went alligator hunting, and it paid off. According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, their alligator was the largest male ever caught in the state.

“During my swamp training I’m going to think about it a lot different now that I’ve snagged a 13-foot, five-inch gator,” Phillips told Marine Corps Times. “I don’t like snakes and I don’t like gators. But it ended up good — I faced my fears.”
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