The REAL Crocodile Dundee: The second-generation croc hunter who has killed more than 20,000 of the beasts in a 37-year career
Sarah CArty for Daily Mail Australia
- Crocodile Mick has killed over 20,000 crocodiles in his 37-year career
- The 57-year-old talks about his biggest and most terrifying conquests
- One of closest calls was with a 3.8 metre croc who launched over the boat
- His biggest kill was just over 4.9 metres long but he came out unscathed
He may have killed over 20,000 crocodiles in his 37 years as a hunter but Mick Pitman - known as Crocodile Mick - admits that even he can still be rattled by the beasts.
The 57-year-old, from Darwin in the Northern Territory, was taught all he knows by his stepfather and mentor German Jack, who was famous for catching four of the largest crocodiles ever held in captivity.
While Mick has yet to beat German Jack's record, he has notched up a pretty impressive haul of crocodiles himself, and recently took down a 4.9m long beast in a billabong with two gun shots to the back of the neck, after spending four weeks staking it out in the dead of the night.
Scroll down for video
Crocodile Mick (pictured) stares down the mouth of a giant 4.9m crocodile he has just captured in a billabong
The crocodile had to be killed as it was massacring cattle from a nearby station. The owners were at their wit's end, with the crocodile preying on up to two animals each day.
It was very late at night Crocodile Mick spotted the beast on the bank of a billabong, eating yet another of the scores of cows he had already devoured. He pounced gun in hand - and found the crocodile surrounded by the bones of dozens of dead animals.
'I sat in a bit of a 'hide' there for nearly four weeks. I waited close enough that he couldn’t smell me and I actually witnessed him taking down a beast,' Crocodile Mick told Daily Mail Australia.
'I waited for my opportunity and kept going until the time was right because it’s like everything - if you’re going to shoot something, don’t shoot it unless you’re going to do the job right.'