Three times in a single week, ʜᴜɴᴛers in Mississippi have shattered the state record for the largest alligator ever caught.

It is obvious that the annual seven-day ʜᴜɴᴛing season, which the state’s wildlife department has deemed essential for managing alligator populations, cannot arrive soon enough.

It’s possible that there’s soᴍᴇᴛʜing in the water this year because on September 1, just after midnight, ʜᴜɴᴛers in Redwood, California, caught a 723lb (328kg) beast, shattering the previous record by a massive margin of 26lb (11.8kg).

But an hour later, another team beat them by capturing an alligator that was 13 feet 4.5 inches long and weighed 727 pounds (330 kilograms).

In the days that followed, ʜᴜɴᴛers kept going out on the sea, trying to beat what seemed like an unattainable record.

However, a rookie ʜᴜɴᴛer named Dalco Turner shattered the record once more on Sunday morning with an alligator weighing 741 pounds (336kg). He claimed that before realizing how large the beast was, his crew first ignored it when they first saw it.

With only 923 ʜᴜɴᴛers permitted to participate in the ʜᴜɴᴛ in Mississippi, where each ʜᴜɴᴛer is only allowed to ᴋɪʟʟ two alligators, this new record is the largest alligator ever caught by ʜᴜɴᴛers.