Man, 71, fights off alligator with fishing pole after it jumps out of water, attacks him

NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) - A 71-year-old Florida man is lucky to be alive after an alligator attack turned a quiet night of fishing into a fight for his life.

James Grayson McMicken, 71, says it was just a routine night last Friday when he took his bulldog out, grabbed his fishing pole and made one cast into the canal behind his North Fort Myers home. That’s when an alligator attacked.

“I started reeling, and it jumped out of the water and grabbed me,” McMicken said.

He says the alligator clamped down on his right leg and pulled him into the water.

“He rolled me down off the bank into the water. I stuck my thumb in one eye, and I just took that fishing pole and jabbed him in that other eye and jabbed him and jabbed him and jabbed him. It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t that long. But then, he turned loose,” he said.

McMicken has legally hunted alligators before, and he says that experience taught him how to survive the attack.

“I’ve always heard that if you’ve got no other choice, get them eyes, and that’s what got him off of me,” he said.

After the alligator released him, McMicken faced another challenge: getting back to his house.

“I’d have never made it crawling this far, so I called my dog over. She stood there and let me get up on her back to where I could get stood up,” he said.

When he made it inside his home, his wife cleaned him up.

“Then, I sat down in my chair and passed out. I was so exhausted,” he said.

McMicken’s family rushed him to the hospital, where he received staples and stitches for deep bite wounds on both sides of his right leg. He also became quite the novelty.

“All the nurses on the floor had to come by and go, ‘Wow, you did what?’” he said. “I’m going to do everything I can not to die. No gator is going to run me off.”

McMicken is now recovering at home and starting physical therapy. He hopes to be back out fishing soon; although he says he’ll be more mindful about how he approaches the water’s edge at night from now on.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said trapping efforts to find the alligator were still underway as of Thursday.