Minnesota Man Bags Deer and Alligator On Deer Firearm Opener [PHOTOS]
It was the firearm deer opener on Saturday morning here in Minnesota and plenty of people on my social media feed had pictures of what they had bagged. One Minnesota guy not only bagged a deer, he basically told the rest of Minnesota to hold his beer as he also managed to get an...alligator. So you might be asking yourself, where was this intrepid man hunting? Louisiana? Florida? Nope, right here in the land of 10,000 lakes, and apparently now alligators.
Cory Klocek of Baldwin Township, located in Sherburne County took to social media on Saturday to share his great yet extremely 2020 firearm deer opener results.
The post from Klocek states:
"Well... this was a first for me... Great Minnesota gun opener... Odd Minnesota opener.... this morning I harvested a beautiful 10 point buck, this was my first ever deer with a shotgun, as I am usually a rifle hunter (different zone, different regs). As I'm walking around a pond, tracking my deer, I look down to see a 3 foot alligator 10 feet in front of me." - Cory Klocek via Facebook
The post from Klocek goes on to state he contacted an area game manager and was okay'd to shoot the gator.
Klocek plans on mounting both the deer and gator together.
I reached out to Klocek via Facebook Messenger this morning when I first saw the deer/alligator post, but haven't heard back yet. I asked him the general area in which he was hunting when he came across the alligator.
This was just the latest report of a Minnesota alligator sighting, in October of 2019 a dead alligator was found on the shore of Prior Lake by a young girl. The alligator was actually a pet of a nearby neighbor that had escaped in July after a storm had "blown debris" into the animal's enclosure and it escaped according to a Fox 9 report.