A 71-year-old Florida Man says he feels fortunate to be alive after an alligator attacked him while he was fishing in a canal behind his Fort Myers, Florida, home.

According to wplglocal.com, the gator bit James Grayson McMicken’s leg and pulled him into the water, but McMicken wasn’t ready to give up. “I’m going to do everything I can not to die,” he said.

He said just like most Friday nights, McMicken took his bulldog out, grabbed his fishing pole and made one cast into the canal.

“I started reeling, and it jumped out of the water and grabbed me,” he said. “He rolled me down off the bank into the water. I stuck my thumb in one eye.”

He said he then grabbed his fishing pole and fought back.

“I just took that fishing pole and jabbed him in that other eye,” he said. “It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t that long. But then he turned loose. I’ve always heard that if you got no other choice, hit their eyes. And that’s what got him off of me,” McMicken said.

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McMicken, who’s hunted alligators, said his experience with them taught him how to survive the attack.

He said once the gator let go, he called his dog to him.

“I’d have never made it crawling this far, so I called my dog over, and she stood there and let me get up on her back to where I could get stood up,” he said.

Once he made it inside his home, his wife cleaned his wounds.

“Then I sat down in my chair and passed out,” he said. “I was so exhausted.”

His family rushed him to the hospital where his wounds were treated. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation officers and state-contracted trappers have yet to find the gator.