EXCLUSIVE: Nearly 14-foot-long gator hunted in Dayton

DAYTON, TX (KTRK) -- The tale of a monster gator starts with a picture of a print in the dirt, much bigger than a man's shoe.

David Nezat with All Is On Faith Guide Service said his friend snapped the picture on his property near Dayton, so he started tracking it.

He spent days trying to catch it but came up short. He sent his friend Lee Sanford out on a scouting mission using a hand-drawn map.

"Took me about three minutes to draw it," Nezat joked.

Lee Sanford stands with the nearly 14-foot alligator he captured in Dayton.

It worked.

With a bow and arrow, Sanford shot the alligator. He said it was close to 50 years old and almost 14 feet long.

"The first time I shot him, the arrow bounced off of him," Sanford said, "He didn't go too far, came back up, I was able to get back up again. The second time I got an arrow in him and then the fun started."

His friend Scotty Stiles helped bring in the alligator for two hours before shooting it in the head with a pistol.

"Once we got the second arrow in him, trying to pick him up was like trying to pick up a log underwater," Stiles said, "A lot of weight."

Nezat said most people trying to catch alligators tie rotting meat to hooks and hang them on trees. He said what Sanford did happens once in a lifetime.

Nezat said the alligator was sent to Porters Processing Plant in Anahuac. He expects Sanford will receive about $10,000 for his catch.