Garrett Wales set himself a five-day mission to uncover the truth about a huge rumoured crocodile which was said to hide in a pond that fearless locals bathed in.

A hunter shot a fabled crocodile which he branded a “man-eating dinosaur” dead after he tracked down the 15ft beast.

Garrett Wales was on a 10-day hunting trip when he was told the tale of a mysterious crocodile that supposedly lurked in a local lake in the Savé Valley of Zimbabwe.

The hunter, from Brock, Texas, had made several kills before he set his sights on the “monster” croc at the Humani Ranch.

He recalled: “As we were getting ready to head out, they had been talking to some other locals in the village.

“They came back and said ‘hey, these guys are saying there’s this crocodile out in an irrigation pond’.

“Now, when we say irrigation pond, it’s full of vegetation. There was this legend of this croc that lived there, but no one we knew had actually seen it.”

Garrett said he had to capture the ‘monster’ to ensure locals safetyDespite the rumours that surrounded the pond, locals continued to fetch water and bathe themselves.

Wales claimed in a now-deleted Facebook post that the creature posed a threat to locals and decided to hunt the creature without any concrete evidence, on the off chance that it was real.

With the help of some guides, the hunter positioned some bait and returned to find nothing had been eaten the next day.

But in a turn of events, Garrett noticed the beast hiding within the reeds.

He said: “This thing was sunning in the reeds. He lays eyes on it right before it slides back into the water. I didn’t see it but he confirmed the crocodile was a monster.”

On the fifth day, they stumbled across the “monster” after they decided to do one more lap around the pond.

Garrett added: “Lo and behold, we come around the corner and were expecting to maybe see him in the reeds, but he was on our side of the bank just 5 to 7 yards from us.”

After shooting the animal dead from point blank range with a .33 Nosler rifle, the hunter said it took the power of nine people to move the crocodile, which was estimated to weigh over 1,000 pounds (71 stone), onto the truck.

“I’ve hunted all my life and I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Garrett said. “It was as insane as it gets in the hunting world.”

Wales posted pictures of the beast to social media and while some praised his efforts and said he was protecting the village, others were less impressed.

One commenter branded him “a horrible person” while others questioned why the croc couldn’t have been captured and moved elsewhere.

The hunter responded to one such message on Instagram and said: “that’s not how it works down there partner”.t

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