By By Adam Robinson
Sports Editor
There are many different types of hunting. You can deer hunt, turkey hunt, dove hunt, squirrel hunt and plenty more. But for one Brewton duo of hunters, gator hunting was the choice.
Local hunters Lee Barrentine and Jarrett Dykes recently were chosen from an 125 name lottery and killed a 12-foot, 2-inches and 535 pounds gator with a compound bow.
Barrentine said that last year, he heard about the state gator hunt and knew that he had to apply. 
The duo left out for Boatyard boat landing Saturday afternoon and after launching the airboat, they immediately began searching for a “big alligator. 
Barrentine said the gator went down to the bottom of the river after the second shot and he stayed down for an hour and 40 minutes. 
Restoration of the American alligator is a national conservation success story in which Alabama played a lead role M. Barnett Lawley, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said in an open letter about alligator hunting season in Alabama. Unregulated alligator harvest throughout the South in the 1920s, 30s and 40s threatened the species with extinction.  In 1938, Alabama took action and became the first state to protect them.  Other states followed Alabama’s lead and, in 1967, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service placed the American alligator on the Endangered Species List.  Two decades of protection enabled the species to rebound.  By 1987, it was removed from the Endangered Species List but retained as a federally protected species.
Alabama’s alligator population has grown to the extent that they pose a nuisance in many areas.  Implementing a regulated alligator hunt on a small scale is an important step toward controlling populations and better managing this unique reptile.
The season was open in the Mobile and Baldwin counties Aug. 14-17 and 21-24 from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m.