On any other opening day of firearm season this would seem entirely bizarre. This is 2020 though, so yeah, this seems about right. On November 7th, we confirmed a report of a Minnesota whitetail deer hunter who successfully filled his buck tag on firearm opener weekend, and then proceeded to harvest an alligator as well.

You read that right..

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The lucky (or unlucky) hunter is Cory Klocek from Princeton, Minnesota and he boils down the hunt on his Facebook page, describing how everything went down:

“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. After contacting the game warden, I was informed I could shoot it. No clue how it got there, or why. I’m guessing someone had it as a pet and released it when it got too big. Either way, only in 2020 can you go out to sit for deer gun season opener in Minnesota and shoot an alligator. I’m still at a loss of words lol. Legit speechless. The plan is to mount them together in a fun taxidermy piece.“

Minnesota can be one of the coldest and most unforgiving states in the United States, but this year it has been unseasonably warm. While some deer openers have 1 -2 feet of snow, this year we saw temps in the 70s with a light forecast of alligator! This will truly be the hunt and harvest of a lifetime for this young man, and as he stated above he will definitely have one of the most unique mounts in the state of MN. Have you heard of any other unique and perplexing hunting stories this fall? Any that could top this?

Later that evening, Cory decided to take full advantage of his harvests from the morning hunt. He prepared the 3-foot-long gator, fired up the BBQ and got to work. He also posted to Facebook looking for any recipe suggestions. Given he’s from Minnesota, I can’t imagine he’s had a ton of experience cooking gator.

When life gives you lemons make lemonade, right?

“So sometimes mother nature throws you a curveball and presents you the opportunity to shoot a great buck and an alligator in the same day during Minnesota deer season. So excited to do something with the 3′ gator I shot on deer gun opener. Any ideas? Recipes?”