Good Point G.G.

I saw that from Captain Kirk last week when he was fishing with Doug Stange and some other lady. When these fish are feeding actively they are on the shallow side of the sandbar...not in the deep hole.

Right.....

Well got my first taste of gar action.

A buddy called and asked me if I wanted to go fish the Lampasas river with him. I said sure, loaded up my two ultralight spinner rods, grabbed my box and went out to meet him.

After a few hours of walking upstream and catching a few bass, blugill and whitebass (nothing sized to write home about) we walk to a point in the river where it gets deep. I see about four or five longnose gar running up and down this section of the river (more like a creek size). So I figure I might as well try so I rig up a treble hook, bobber and half a white bass and toss her in. After a few minutes I realize my bobber is gone and I can see in the water maybe a 3' long gar gnawing on the bait. I open the bail for the run and wait. The gar gnaws on the bait for another 10 seconds or so and spits it out. I reel it back in and cast again. About 20 min later I see a smaller gar looking at the bait and circling it like jaws. I slowly pull it towards me and the gar grabs it and submerges about a foot under the water and starts gnawing on it. Again I open the bail for the run and wait. The gar chews on the bait for another 10 seconds and spits it out.

I cast to another part of the creek and wait. This time another 3 or so foot gar comes along and grabs it, this time I give him about 5 seconds and WHAM I set the hook. He doubles my ultra-lite rod over and tries to go deep. I raise the rod to keep the pressure on him and my drag is going out. He turns a couple of times and spits the hook out. It was fun while it lasted, if only for 30 seconds.

I realize I didnt have a good rig as I just tied a bobber and a treble hook on to my spiderwire. But I was glad I was getting the hits, and thanks to Golden Ghost's tips for how to hook the bait. I think they may have felt the bouyancy of the golfball sized bobber I had and thats what caused them to spit the bait out. I didnt have any slip floats or proper gar rigging equipment in my box. Next time I will be prepared, hopefully in a place with the big gator gars.

Typical gar fishing.... you hook alot, catch a few.

Rope Lures are in my mind the best option for longnose gar. No hooks or hook set needed! I'll be selling rope lures soon too.
Longnose Gar are hard to hook due to there narrow snout unlike most other Gars.

But hey, what did I say. Gar pull like you tied your line to a truck and had it drive away. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!

Dustin
Snaggletooth Lures & Rigs

I have a question for the gar experts....if gator gar are surfacing....is that where you want to cast....OR...do you want to cast near the shallower water? I know on the IN-Fisherman they said to cast near the sandbar because that's where they will feed...but what if there is no sandbar...just deep water?

When you set your float...I'd imagine you would want to get it as close to the bottom as you could right?

When you see Gator Gars surfacing cast your rods in the area your seeing them surface.

If your fishing a sandbar fish the flat side, not the hole side.

I don't fish sand bars, I just cast one rods shallow, and one rod deep, till I find where they are.

When setting your float set it to Twice the depth of the water your fishing, as the float is just for showing where the gar is.

Dustin
Snaggletooth Lures & Rigs

if you set the float twice the depth,wouldnt that mean your bait is on bottom?

yes..... thats where most large Gar hang out.

or you could go to cabela's fish tank and try and cacth one of those with out getting caught. (try not to get caught or fall in the water when they try to chase you away. those gar in there are probabaly starving for some fresh meat.

works for a little bit until som1 see's you or your bait

Yes. Kirkland uses a float to indicate when a gar is on the bait, not to suspend the bait off the bottom.

Do you think it matters the kind of bait for gar?
I have some left over shad frozen in the deep freeze...they are 1-2 pounds....or should it be carp?

I noticed Captain Kirk just uses carp.

I think gar eat just about anything. Kirk probably uses carp because they're plentiful and easy to catch, and gar are familiar with them. Shad should work, too.

Interestingly, a web site I found reported that the most common food item for gar in Louisiana was blue crab.

Chris.... yes, 1-2lb shad will be fine. Pretty much any large cut or whole bait will work for Gator Gar. as stated above, most use carp due to they are plentiful and easy to catch.



Ummm...... really. There are a ton of large Blue Crabs here. You don't happen to have a link to that do you?

Dustin
Snaggletooth Lures & Rigs

http://www.saveourwetlands.org/garfish.htm

That article was written in 1951, but I doubt that gar eating habits have changed substantially.

Ummm..... Very interesting write up!
Thanks for posting S-n-N!

GG

GG is right about tying your line to a truck! I landed a Gator gar on RC that went a touch over 6 ft long. I was using a chart. slab on a 7 foot Ugly stick/ ABU 6000 with 20 lb test casting for hybrids when he hit. Thought I was hung up on a shallow stump so I started going in with the trolling motor to get unhung(my last char. slab). Lure came loose(so I thought) and all went fine as I was retrieving the line until he got about 15 ft from the boat. At that point, that monster took a left and proceeded to strip all the line from the reel save 3 wraps before we got the boat started. We followed him and 3 times he spooled me and had to follow with the big motor to recover line. We ended up landing him within 50 ft of where he was hooked. Took over 20 minutes. It was quite a sight. Putting back into a boat show with the big motor, me sitting on the bow with a heavy action rod doubled in two like he was towing us along!! Had the whole thing on video at one time, but sadly can't find it. We brought him to the boat, removed the last precious slab spoon from the corner of his mouth and returned him to the deep to fight another day. They are awesome fish!!

Anybody ever soaked some cut bait by the windsock on RC?? I always see gar in the 5-6 foot class rolling out there!

LovnTexas - That...is awesome.

A perfect example of the Fight from a Gator Gar!
WTG on the release as well!

Dustin
Snaggletooth Lures & Rigs

dang golden goast u relly love your gar if i catch then its time to play darts or base ball but i gess that what u like to fish for to each his own

Who wouldn't love catching a gar?

They can get to over 200 pounds, they are strong, and they have been around for millions of years.

I hope that the darts or baseball comment is not what I think it is...

Your dern right I do.....

I'd rather catch a fish that fights over a fish that does not fight but only jumps and shakes it head.

GG
Snaggletooth Lures & Rigs

that is vary true i do agre with u on that

hate to tell u but that is what u are thinking

Yep, don't normally fish for them, but Gar have some shoulders!!!