Watch: Python hunters team up to tackle massive 198-pound snake

Nov. 8 (UPI) -- A group of python hunters in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve banded together to capture a monster 17-foot snake that tipped the scales at 198 pounds.

Conservationist Mike Elfenbein, 45, said he and his 17-year-old son, Cole, were out looking for the invasive snakes in the 729,000-acre preserve when they came across the massive python.

Fellow hunters Trey Barber, Carter Gavlock and Holden Hunter also spotted the behemoth Burmese and joined in the fracas.

"We were strangers," Elfenbein told CBS News. "But the five of us knew we had to capture this thing."

The five hunters struggled with the female snake for about 45 minutes.

"I grabbed her by the head and my son had her by the tail. We stretched her out across the road and Carter, Holden, and Tray jumped on top of her to try to hold her down. She literally lifted us up the ground," Elfenbein told WSVN-TV.

Professional python hunter Amy Siewe was summoned to the scene to collect the captured snake. She said it weighed 198 pounds, making it the second-heaviest on record in the state.