A couple good friends and I got together for some alligator gar fishing yesterday. The day started out with a couple hours of light rain, which really helped keep the temperatures down. We launched our boat just after daylight, and after a few minutes running up the river we stopped and started working on catching some fresh river bait. Within short order we had 4 smallmouth buffalo of the 1-3 pound size in the cooler and we started focusing in on the �reel� task at hand, catching some alligator gar! It didn�t take long to start getting runs with our fresh bait out, within about ten minutes of baiting up we had a scrappy 4� class fish on the bank. A few more fish of this size were landed and then we moved on to another spot. At the next stop we managed a few fish, but not much was going on so we moved on. At our next stop we caught a few more 4� class fish, and then landed a nice fish of 5�. By this time we had landed 8 fish, and it was only 11:30, so we had a pretty good day going considering we caught bait first. While I was away baiting a rod in the boat Jimmy got a nice slow run on one of the rods. When Jimmy set the hook the fish set the rod on Jimmy and the fight was on. Jimmy forgot to turn off the clicker when he engaged the spool, so I thought he had just forgot to engage the spool when I heard the clicker screaming and saw him holding the rod, however as I got closer to Jimmy and Richard I realized from the bow in the line that Jimmy was hooked up to a big fish. The fish was making a drag peeling run and all Jimmy could do was hold on. Finally the fish turned but it made several more drag peeling runs before we finally got a glimpse of a tail and got a good idea of just how big a fish it was. It took me three tries to snare on the fish, I nearly got taken for a swim the first time and the second the fish just swam through. On the third the fish was calm enough I was able to get the cable around the fins and bring the fish on the bank. This 7�2� fish had a girth of 38.25� and estimates out at 175#�s, the biggest fish Jimmy has ever caught of any species and the biggest him and Richard have ever seen in person of any species. Way to go Jimmy. Richard and I both got a fish over 5� for each of us as well. A great trip for all of us.

wow, nice fish!!

Thats a huge fish!

Very nice!

Dang, I bet that clicker was screaming'.....

I am SO jealous! My best was one of your dinks. Congrats on 1 heck of a fish!

Nice Catch! Good job.

Nice dinosaur!

nice one!