14-year-old Akron boy has a whopper of a fishing story

By LINDA GOLZ

The eighth-grader dragged the dead reptile home by the tail for four to five blocks.

AKRON — Anthony Greer has a fish tale of a lifetime.

The Akron teen had planned a leisurely day of fishing at Summit Lake on Sunday in hopes of luring a few bass.

Instead, at 9 a.m. the 14-year-old caught what authorities believe is an alligator.

Anthony said the reptile rose from the water and then lunged at him.

The Innes Middle School eighth-grader admitted it scared him at first.

“His mouth opened up. He would have bit me,” Anthony said. “I had to hit him [on the head] with a brick.”

Anthony said he carried the dead reptile the four to five blocks from the lake to his Leroy Street home by his tail.

“Everybody was stopping me” along the way, he said.

Anthony’s 18-year-old brother, Reggie Scott, measured the reptile at 4 feet 2 inches long.

“We noticed it was tagged,” Scott said. The silver colored band on its right back foot reads “483.”

Akron Zoo’s Manager of Living Collections Pete Mohan examined photos of the reptile.

“I’m pretty sure, based on the picture,” it is an alligator and not a caiman. He estimated that the reptile appears to be about 4 years old.

“My suspicion is that this was a poached animal, or stolen,” Mohan said. Otherwise it wouldn’t have had the tag on, he said.

“It’s possible it could have come from an alligator farm or a pet store,” he added.

Alligators are prohibited under Akron’s exotic-animal ordinance, unless the owner has a permit from the director of health. A violation is a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by six months in jail.

This would be the second alligator found in Summit Lake in two years. Sandy the Alligator, caught by a teenager in July 2007, was adopted by an animal-rescue group.

“I want to get this thing stuffed,” Anthony said. “I didn’t plan on catching an alligator.”