If you thought the 20-pound bass you caught last week was big, wait until you get a load of this.

According to a recent Good Morning America story, a family in Thomaston, Alabama banded together over the weekend to reel in the biggest alligator ever caught in the state. The catch, which notched 1011.5 pounds on the scale and measured 15 feet in length, was caught by five members of the Stokes family, who spent 10 hours fighting the jolly green monster before finally winning the battle.

Not that the trouble was over after the alligator was actually caught. On the contrary, the Stokes family had some difficulty getting their gator weighed and measured, simply because it was so incredibly large.

Length measurements were no big deal, of course. Once the gator was caught and killed, biologists from the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division (of the Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources) were able to easily able to measure the colossal beast from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tale.

Weighing the half-ton alligator was considerably more difficult. The winch that the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division usually uses to life alligators onto the scale for measuring broke when they tried to use it on this fella. Ultimately, biologists did get the gator onto the scale to be weighed – but not without using an industrial backhoe to get the job done.

All the work was worth it for the Stokes family, though. The alligator weighed in at 1,011.5 pounds, making it an instant record-holder in the state of Alabama.

Meanwhile, we are left wondering how many boats, fishing poles, and fishing reels were destroyed in the battle with this King Kong-sized beast. Perhaps we will have to wait for the film adaptation to find out.