Gar on the Fly

Good morning everyone,

A few of you may have seen me post this elsewhere, but I wanted to include it here as well as I'd love as much input as possible on this topic.

While I normally stick to field reports and fly tying tutorials on my blog, I've always been bothered by the prevalence of articles out there on the use of Rope Flies and wanted to put something out there that contained some alternative options for targeting Gar with a fly rod.

As I first learned about rope flies living in DFW, I thought this group might be able to provide some added input on the topic. Any comments are greatly appreciated, whether here or in the comments on the blog. Eventually, I hope to update the article to include the recommendations/critiques I've been receiving.


Here's the link for those who are interested:

https://fatfingeredflytyer.com/gar-on-the-fly/

Thanks in advance
Chris

For me, Gar are like Tarpon. You don't hook many and you land even fewer. But, with a small diameter hook and a sharp point you can catch Gar without fouling them up in a rope. Most of my success comes using small flies with very small hooks. But I'm no expert.

This has been my exact experience as well.

Thanks for the input, Capt. Mac!

Chris

I always throw at gar when I see them and I hook many, but land few. I am always chasing records, and a gar is often an easy waterbody record on a fly. Since flies that entangle fish are rejected by some record keeping organizations, I do not use rope flies. Likewise, although flies with small treble hooks are very effective on gar, they are also prohibited by some record keeping organizations. Therefore, I have found that using a small, sharp, strong J-hook in a fly is the most successful hook I have found. A fly I use similar to a San Juan worm, with 2 single hooks instead of one hook, is also very effective. Getting an individual gar to hit a fly can be a frustrating endeavor.

Just finished reading your blog post. In my humble opinion, and my experiences, I would say you are spot on.

Exactly my experience. While they're not cheap, I really like the Gamakatsu SL45 Bonefish hooks for this purpose.

Thanks for the info.

Chris

Nice fish.

@Osbornfishing do you have any pics of this gar fly of yours?

I've used the rope flies a number of times, and it's amazing, but way too dangerous for the fish, and a screaming pain to untangle.

Here is what my gar fly looks like. This is for smaller gar with 1/0 hooks. I use a steel leader between the hooks and tie on a steel leader in front of the fly. I tie the fly in different colors. Besides red, I have caught fish on black, white, and brown. I create all kinds of crazy flies and as you can see most of the time I am not worried about detail, just catching fish. Unfortunately, the single hooks do not get a high hookup rate, but the j-hooks meet the requirements for catching records. If I didn’t care about records, I would use treble hooks.

Interesting design. Thanks for sharing!

Chris