Most catfish trips are about waiting on a rod tip and keeping bait fresh. But on March 22 at Lake Arlington in Tarrant County, Texas, Mark Everett found out the hard way that sometimes what’s on the end of your line isn’t a fish at all—and what you do after the surprise matters just as much as the surprise itself.
Everett told reporters that he accidentally hooked an alligator while fishing and filmed the encounter. The details that got him in trouble, including what officials say happened onshore afterward, are laid out in the source post.
A catfish fight that turned into something else
Everett said the first sign something was wrong was how the line behaved—running around the boat and pulling it into circles. That’s not a blue cat digging for bottom. That’s a big, heavy animal doing whatever it wants.
He said he realized what it was and grabbed his camera. “The whole boat starts spinning around in circles. I said, ‘That’s a freaking alligator.’ So, I get my camera,” Everett said. “This is an unreal story, man. Nobody’s gonna believe that.”
Texas wardens say the catch wasn’t the violation
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials made a point that matters for every angler in gator country: unintentionally catching an alligator while fishing isn’t a violation by itself, as long as the animal is immediately released…