BRAZORIA COUNTY, Texas – The Father's Day weekend had an exciting interruption Saturday afternoon when an alligator was spotted swimming in Surfside Beach, according to several witnesses.
An audience of locals and visitors noticed the 7-foot alligator first at about 9:00 a.m. near Public Access Road 2 in Brazoria County.
Mitchell Davis of Montgomery said the animal was just paddling in the surf not bothering anyone, but then a fisherman hooked him and the gator became agitated.
“He thrashes back and forth to the point where his tail was actually slapping himself in the face. He’s trying to spin around and get a hold of anything,” Davis said.
Davis, who was visiting the beach with his wife and two children, decided at that point to capture the reptile for the good of the gator and everyone else at the beach.
He and two other men threw a rope around the gator's neck.
“I took a towel and threw it over his head to blind him for a second so he couldn’t see what we were fixing to do and me and another guy jumped on top of him," Davis said. "I grabbed hold of his jaws and pulled back on his head, so this other guy could rope him, tape up his mouth so he couldn’t bite me no more."
No one — including the alligator — was injured.
The Texas game warden was called to retrieve the alligator, which was released back into the wild.
