The gar action is heating up. I hit Canyon Lake this afternoon and caught some decent longnose. Here is a of a good one from tonight along with the fly I use to catch them.


http://caseysmartt.com/2010/06/09/canyon-lake-fly-fishing-report-6-9-10/

This fly HOOKS them- no joke. The hookup rate is good.

Got some good HD video which I'll post up later. Sorry for the quality of the photos here... they are extracted from frames on the video.

Casey

nice! I have been getting a lot of gar orders for hookless flies for longnose lately. maybe this will start a new trend...

Tube fly with a offset octopus stinger, Is this fly getting them in the meaty outside area of the mouth, or in the soft side of the mouth.

I never really was a fan of the rope fly, this looks very very good.

decent...yep that is a decent sized fish alright. I generally jump up and down and might even wind up falling overboard if I were to catch such a decent fish.

That is just incredibly effing cool. I am utterly fascinated by Gar, and I like your fly a heck of a lot better than the idea of a rope fly.

I have no desire to kill these creatures so the rope fly doesn't appeal at all. I sure would like to abduct a few Gar someday and take some pics with 'em. Thanks for sharing that fly.

Ropes don't kill gar, irresponsible anglers do....

I love using the rope fly in the spring, but you got to use 50# leader.

COOL though... nice fish Casey!!!

Nice fish!

Cool fly!

I'm thinking I hope that fly floats

Linky no worky anymore.

Glad you liked the gar/fly.

The fly does not float. I normally fish for these longnose in deep water (15-60 ft.) and use either an intermediate or fast sink line, drifting over schooling fish. Been experimenting with this pattern for a while. When the fish strike the fly, or grab it and start to swim away, I let the line pull tight and then pull strongly against it. Not a true "hookset" but definitely firm tension to make sure the circle hook is in. Once gar are hooked this way, they seldom have gotten off. I am using a 5 ft 30-50 lb leader tied straight to the fly line. Forget about tapers and finesse... it is not that kind of fly fishing. You need strength and scrape/bite resistance throughout the leader.

The circle hook stinger anchors through the outside of the bottom jaw gullet. This is really the only true "hookable" part of the longnose. Imagine a gar slapping the center of the fly, and then imagine the fly sliding through until the circle hook goes around the bottom jaw, grabs, and the upturned point secures through the bottom of the gar's gullet. There is no hook at the front of the fly.

I have not yet settled on the most efficient way to tie the fly (in terms of body build, leader build, etc...), but I am leaning toward pre-rigged wire-leadered hooks with a tube fly that slides over the front of the wire leader slightly. In years past, I have used regular stingers, tandem hooks, trebles, hooks strapped together, etc... and nothing works like these circle hooks. Do you still miss some fish? Of course. But not that many and certainly nothing like conventional hooks.

The next step is to fine-tune the boatside handling of these fish. They are a nightmare in terms of slime and bad cuts/scratches that imediately swell up and easily become infected. Must be something in that slime. I have always used leather gloves and plenty of caution, but there has got to be a better way. Maybe a modified "tube net" of some kind.

Casey

How about a cradle, like musky and salmon fishermen have used.... a soft mesh netting, sew in two looks where you can run a dowel or a 1x1 into each side and Bam... Cradle where a fish cant jump out or fly left and right...

That just might work. Might be tough solo, but so is leaning over the boat and grabbing their snout. I would like to find/make a rubberized tubular landing net.

Thanks
Casey

Why not just pull em up to the boat and shoot 'em in the head with a .38 snub nose like my uncle - WAIT - this ain't the 1950's - sorry Gartooth - I just woke up.

Nice fly and fish! I was in TX last week for my son's graduation adn tried to pick up a gar with no luck. Little fish kept hitting my fly, so I switched to an 8# tippet and a cap spider I tied on a 1/120th oz jig head. After catching a few bream, BOOM, a 2' gar grabbed the little spider! He owned me for about a minute until the line went slack. I figured he cut my tippet with his teeth, but when I got the line in, the hook eye and a very small length of shaft were still tied on! The dang fish cut (or broke) my hook above the jig head!