I can't believe I saw this happen

Today, Ben and I went to a state park outside of New Orleans. It's in the bayou, which is like a big wetland that serves to buffer the area between land, sea and river. Being a sort of triple frontier, it hosts tons of wildlife. We walked around on a boardwalk through the life there, eating blackberries that have just come into season and spying the occasional frog or anole lizard. Eventually we came to a bridge above a 1890s era canal that had been dredged through the area in hopes of draining lands upstream to grow sugar. We had seen a number of small alligators in the area, most no more than 1-2 feet long.

As we stood on the timbered bridge overlooking the waters 15 feet below us, we noticed a snake, probably a cottonmouth or water moccasin struggling with a catfish that it had snagged. The snake dragged the catfish up onto a little floating patch of water plants and the two writhed around until the fish was mostly still. The snake then began positioning its mouth over the head of the fish and unhooking its jaw to begin swallowing the prey. To our left, 20 feet away, we saw a large alligator trolling around. The occasional movement caught the alligator's ancient eye and it began paying attention. In rapt silence, we looked on as the snake struggled with the fish, wondering if the alligator saw the scene unfolding. Another splash, and the alligator moved totally silently to the edge of the vegetation flotilla. Now the alligator was within 6 feet of the struggling pair. In a motion that was almost too quick agile and perfect to describe, the alligator snatched up the fish and snake in one gulp before returning to a stony, perfectly calm state. We realized that our jaws had dropped and our mouths hung open during the drama that had just unfolded below. If I had seen the very same event happen on TV I would have thought for sure the event was staged, but it was superbly real.