re: Kid caught a little gator north of Knoxville on Norris Lake

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They released some decades ago in north Alabama (Lauderdale County) on the Tennessee River for beaver control. Thought they wouldn't survive. They were wrong. Mostly centrally located in Wheeler Lake, but not uncommon in the summers to find them branching out.

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Most of those were released in Limestone County in Beaver Dam, Limestone, and Piney creeks. All of those creeks run together at an area called Arrowhead Landing, before running into the main river. It has quite a few gators now, some are pretty big too.
Also quite a few in the surrounding gravel pits. Most of them are on Wheeler Wildlife Refuge.
They first put them when I was a teenager, maybe 1974?
I remember we used to go look at 1 of them that stayed near the Beaver Dam Creek bridge on Highway 20.
He was probably less than 5 feet long back then, but he was a pretty big deal to us.