Four years ago when his father joined longtime friend Jay Reed in an alligator hunt in southwestern Georgia and Reed subsequently got one of the big reptiles, Jeremiah Gilliam could only listen to the story.

This past Sunday he lived such a tale for himself, snaring a 9-foot-6-inch gator only minutes after losing a two-hour fight with a 12-footer on Lake Seminole.

Reed and Butch Gilliam, Jeremiah's father, watched and videoed the excitement from a nearby boat.

The 24-year-old Chickamauga Telephone Co. employee and former Ridgeland High School wrestler was in a flat-bottom boat with Dennis Watson of Thomaston, Ga., who had helped Reed get his 10-foot gator in 2007.

"We were all fishing for gators, but Dennis was basically working for me to get one," Jeremiah said Tuesday night. "Jay and Dad were trying to get one, too, but they kept hanging behind us a little bit. I know they were more interested in me getting one."

Only one gator is allowed per hunter, so Jeremiah was quickly done for the season. But Reed said he and Butch plan to go back before the month is over and try to break the state record with one longer than 13-9.

The Gilliams live in Rossville. Reed, a 1981 Rossville High School graduate, lives in Ball Ground, Ga., but has continued to hunt and fish with the Gilliams through the years. Just as Butch's late father, J.O. Gilliam, introduced Butch to the outdoor sports at an early age, Jeremiah went with them almost as soon as he began walking.

"I killed my first deer when I was 6, with my dad," Jeremiah recalled. "With him, Jay Reed and my granddaddy, I was in the woods with at least one of the three every weekend."

He's already started continuing the tradition with his son, Cole, who's not even 2 yet.

"He shoots all the deer heads I've got on the wall now, with his toy guns," Jeremiah said. "And I tote him just about everywhere with me."

That did not include the gator hunt this week, but Jeremiah said he expected there would be three generations of Gilliams on the next one they can be drawn for in 2015 - despite the danger.

"The power in them gators, how strong they are - words can't describe it," he said. "You've got to see it and feel it to believe it.

"I hooked my first gator Sunday morning, me and Dennis - the big 12-footer. I throwed about 60 yards with that treble hook, and I set the hook so hard I lifted some of his back out of the water. But when that dude left, he jerked me up out of my seat. Power is not the word. He was a bad dude.

"I fought him for about two hours, and then we got in some grass and got him up to the boat and Dennis was going to stick him with a harpoon. But he hit a real hard spot in his tail - it was a glance - and when he did that the gator got excited and blew out of there in the grass and pulled my hook off with him.

"Dennis started to get sick about losing it, but I said that's the way it goes - let's go get another one. Within 10 minutes we had found this other one and I had hooked up on it. I fought this gator for about 45 minutes. I learned some things from the first one."

Watson was a huge help not only in finding the gators but in completing the process, Jeremiah said.

"Dennis had us close to gators all weekend long," Reed added, but he praised the young hunter's expertise as well.

"Jeremiah is a very accomplished hunter, fisherman and bull rider, with a personality that everybody wants to be around," Reed said. "You won't find a better young man than him."