By Chad Love

Alabama has a new state record alligator after a Mobile man and five of his buddies snagged a monstrous, 700 lb. gator on the first night of the season.

From this story on al.com:

There is a new, undisputed Alabama state record alligator. Matt Thornton of Mobile, along with five of his hunting partners, killed a 13-foot, 5-inch behemoth that tipped the scales at a whopping 701 pounds on the first night of the fourth gator season on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. I didn't really scout before the season, but I fished the area a lot and saw a big gator in that area," Thornton said of the stretch of Tensaw River a quarter-mile south of Lower Bryant's Landing where they caught the alligator.

"We didn't really know he was that big until we actually hooked him." Before Thornton's animal stretched the tape and scales to such impressive proportions, two animals killed in 2007 unofficially shared the title of the state's top gator.

Prior to Saturday morning, John Sutton of Stockton held the record for length with a 12-foot, 10-inch gator pulled from the Tensaw River and William Simmons of Headland held the weight record with a 675-pound animal pulled from Lake Eufaula during the first-ever hunt on the lake.

Wow. How many handbags and/or pairs of boots do you think that is?