Alabama Gator Bonanza: A 620-Pound Gator And Other Giants

Back in 2006, actor Ben Stiller and an all-star cast that included the late Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Dick Van Dyke and more, wowed American moviegoers with the smash hit Night at the Museum.

While it was outdoors rather than indoors like the movie mentioned above, the state of Alabama saw a series of viral Facebook posts and subsequent news stories this weekend that might well be dubbed "Night of the Gators" in the Yellowhammer State after a run of big alligators were taken by hunters with management tags from the state's Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division.

"A record night last night with 23 alligators harvested from the West Central Alligator Management Area," noted the post that started the alligator news ruckus on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. 

Perhaps more important than the words was the photo of Eli Beck, a young Alabama outdoors enthusiast who helped his uncle Ryan Speir on an Alabama management hunt on Aug. 14. While Speir was the actual hunter who tagged the alligator, a check station photo with young Eli went viral almost immediately with the notation: "This alligator was 13'7" and 620 lbs."

Speir, a 42-year-old plumber from Opelika, Ala., doesn’t mind that Eli got his 15 minutes of fame and said that someone at the check station snapped the photo. Once that photo hit social media platforms, the rest is history for the avid young hunter, angler and Little League baseball player. 

The older Spier, also an avid alligator and deer hunter, has quite a history with Alabama alligator hunting in recent years, tagging a number of big swamp lizards as well as being on hand back in 2011 when the state’s largest alligator got tagged. More on that in a moment.

This year, Speir drew not one, but two management tags in the state’s various zones, but he could only use one and chose the one he utilized last week. Speir, who has been chasing alligators for around a decade now, also had a “Super Tag,” which allowed him to take a much smaller alligator later on the same night last week for management purposes in the west central zone.

Speir drew his primary management tag for the zone in an area that had never been hunted before. After doing some pre-season scouting, one of those surveying missions revealed a couple of big alligators to target, including the one that Speir ended up taking. On the opening night of the season last week, the avid gator hunter had his 24-foot Xpress center console boat in a western Alabama river, watching the clock for the countdown to legal shooting time at dark.

While he was waiting, one of the local game wardens came by and checked him to make sure that everything was legal. As Speir was being checked, he spied the big swamp lizard a few hundred yards away, a huge alligator that would pop up for a 20- or 30-second visit to the surface, then submerge and disappear for a half-hour or more.

As legal hunting time finally arrived, Speir was in good position and readied his Arkansas-made spotlight and its red-hued beam. He also had his initial snagging hook ready at the end of 150-pound Power Pro braid. 

When legal shooting shooting time began, Speir found himself around 30 yards away from where the big gator was last seen. When the reptile surfaced again, he made a cast with a 7-foot long Tuna Popping Rod and a Shimano Saragosa 20000 saltwater spinning reel, reeled up tight to the big gator, took a good breath and set the hook.

Upon feeling the initial hookset, the big gator surged away from where it was and stopped in the middle of the river. Next up was getting an even larger treble hook and rope into the gator, which caused the gator to surge off even more.

Once Speir was tight to the gator and had it near the boat, the next step was to harpoon it and bring it alongside the boat, where the gator was gaffed, had its mouth and eyes taped shut, and was dispatched with a knife. The whole process took up to a half hour to complete, but once the finishing blow was administered to the gator’s spinal column, the quivering quickly came to an end and all was still.

Helping Speir throughout the hunt was young Eli, along with his father, his great uncle and a mutual friend of the crew. According to Speir, alligator hunting is more of a team sport and he was glad to have all of the help with everyone performing like a well-oiled machine. In fact, he notes that the only year he ever ate a tag—last year in fact—it happened to some degree when he lost a big one at the boat because he didn’t have enough help on board.

Speir says he loves to hunt alligators as much as any other hunting and fishing he does, partly for the adrenaline rush from chasing one of nature’s apex predators and partly for the natural bounty that goes home with him. He hunts for the hide, which he will have tanned, eventually having enough tanned gator hide for a sport coat and a bench seat cover in his pickup. He and his wife also enjoy a freezer full of succulent gator meat, and then there’s the big gator head, which will be mounted by his taxidermist friend.

After getting the huge alligator on ice and back to the check station the other night, officials confirmed that the length of Speir’s gator was 13-feet, 7-inches, and the gator tipped the scale at 620 pounds. 

Yup, that’s a big alligator anyway you examine it, and the photo and story of Speir’s big reptile has gone viral since then and been carried by numerous Alabama media outlets. 

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE

Speir’s big alligator was hardly the only gator news of the weekend in Alabama, where the management hunting season for the big reptiles ran for several days in various portions of the Yellowhammer State.

On Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025, there were not one, but two social media posts from the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division. "Summertime nights means alligator season!" read the first post, along with a photo of several hunters and two big gators in a big jon boat. "Zach Dawsey, Wes Tyner, Brandon Taylor,  and Wade Battle doubled on two 10' gators from the southeast Alligator Management Area."

And then late on Sunday night, yet another 'Bama gator update surfaced with a social media post that read "Ricky Davis, Lester Johnston, and crew with (two gator emojis) from the Southwest Alligator Management Area." Accompanying that post was a description of one of the alligators reportedly measuring 12 feet, 4 inches and weighing 451 pounds, along with a description of the second alligator measuring 12 feet, 6 inches and weighing 524 pounds. 

How many alligators are there in Alabama? Some internet estimates place the number at around 70,000, but that numerical source is difficult to pin down. What is known is that Alabama's alligator population has continued to grow, and they now are a nuisance in some areas, particularly in the management zones already noted. It's worth noting that while alligators aren't hunted anywhere in the state outside of those management zones, the species can be found in central Alabama and even in northern portions near the Tennessee border. 

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