I have literally been trying to learn how to catch these things since last spring. Have tried snagging them, and small pirch cut in half or whole and it never works! Please let me in on some of the secrets,

We catch a lot of them when fishing for crappie in the creeks. They were up in the creeks spawning this weekend and were everywhere. We don't target them but always seem to catch at least one on some type of jig or roadrunner every trip we take.

Where you fishing?

We caught LOTS of them, while fishing for catfish. BIG circle hook, shad for bait.

i have never tried to snag them but i catch them on the creek by me with little minnows and occasionally worms.

if the longnose are swimming near the top try using a rope lure. Suspend your piece of bluegill (use the head with some of the guts still in it) under a float. They like moving things to attack, they will hit lures even. You are going to have a very hard time snagging one (which is illegal) due to their armor like scales. I have caught them reeling in a worm, even stink bait just because it was moving. Last one on a worm left a tooth in my arm, respect them no matter how small.

They'll pick up stinky cutbait pretty quickly, but they'll carry it around at the tips of their beaks for five minutes like puppies. You have a low chance of setting the hook until they move the bait further down their mouth. If you pull on the rod they'll just melt away like they were never there.

I've had good luck with frayed nylon, mainly on fly rods.

Caught a 4' one today, let him run till I only had 5 turns left on the spool then set the hook. Using a Team Catfish hook it set right in the corner of his mouth. Easy removal. Had several other runs, really didn't want to hook them so just let them run a bit and reeled in. As soon as they got about 5 foot from they kayak they let go. Was using perch cut in half.

When I was a kid we would take some small dia. nylon rope and loop one end and tie it with fishing line then we would fray out the other end. It would be about 4 inches long. Used a 3/8 oz. sinker about 6 in. from the lure. Use it like a fishing lure. The gar will bit it and the nylon frayed end of the rope will wrap up in there teeth.