I was fishing in the Guadalup River a few weeks ago and saw an Alligator Gar swimming along the surface. Does anyone have any experience catching (not shooting) these fish? How do I do it?

Live perch fished about 3' under the water with a 6" piece of frayed nylon rope tied tight just above or slightly overlapping the hook. They bite the perch and get the rope tangled in their teeth.

Have multiple pieces of rope b/c if they tangle up in it, you will have quite the job getting it out.

There are snare rigs that work, as well, but they're a pain to rig up.

You can also use hooks, but you have to give the gar ample time to hook itself. They have very bony mouths.

Perch or fresh cutbait both work.

What part of the Guadalupe? If it’s in the Gonzales area please catch and kill as many as possible.

Why? They are pretty good eating I hear, once you get the scales trimmed off. Fried gar chunks are supposed to be good.

Best way to clean gar (from watching my dad) is to use a hatchet to split the skin, then cut the meat out. They're some bony SOBs, but the meat is white and flakey.

It was in the Hill Country, between Boerne and Spring Branch. It may have been a spotted gar. It had a long, narrow snout and weighed around 10 lbs.

I have tried gar three times cooked three different ways; Gar balls (like hog balls), fried, and grilled. All three ways tasted the same; greasy, tuff, and dirty.

In addition to a frayed nylon rope, panty hose will do the trick.

I ask this in a nice and respectful way. Why would someone want to kill as many gar as possible? They are beautiful creatures that have been around for so long. They, IMHO are our ties to prehistoric animals.


I understand killing them for food or fishing them and then releasing, but I cannot, for the life of me understand why some one would want to kill them. If we kill them all off that will be one less animal we have. Then we will find out the purpose they serve but it will be too late.

I'm not saying kill off the entire species, but in the part of the river I fish in there is nothing to control the population. The gar have gotten so bad that they are starting to kill off a lot of the catfish. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s they would let commercial fishermen go in with gill nets to help control them, but since it hasn’t been done in twenty years the gar have exploded.

Thread some nylon rope over a 3-0 bait hook with abot 4-6inches hanging off the end.
Next fray the nylon cord/rope as much as possible BEHIND the gap in the hook.
Weight it just enough to cast.
Fish it in a pulsing-like motion just under the surface.
The principle is that the gar will strike it and tangle their teeth in the frayed cord/rope.
It has worked multiple times for friends of mine on the Brazos.

Now all that being said, why the hell would want to mess with those prehistoric #$@%ers?

Good fight. Biggest freshwater fish by far. The smaller ones can eat pretty well. Every other state but Texas is having problems with their gator gar populations falling off substantially. We are the only state with a healthy population.

Agree with the nylon rope

i've always used cut bait, an offshore rod and rill, and a .22.

Get a big spoon and attach a frayed nylone rope to the treble hook...money.

We always used steel leader run through a bait fish, sometimes with a hook and sometimes without. Use a milk jug or the like to keep the bait off the bottom. The gar will take the fish in its mouth and go find a place to eat it. Don't offer resistance until it has stopped moving. It will swallow the fish and then you can bring the gar in. Always handy to have a baseball bat on hand once you land your target.

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I'm not saying kill off the entire species, but in the part of the river I fish in there is nothing to control the population. The gar have gotten so bad that they are starting to kill off a lot of the catfish. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s they would let commercial fishermen go in with gill nets to help control them, but since it hasn’t been done in twenty years the gar have exploded.

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Reasonable enough. Thanks.

Long narrow snout description seems to point to a longnose/needlenose gar. Those are also the ones I see upstream in the Guadalupe by my parent's house.

Longnose/needlenose


Spotted


Alligator


http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/water/aquaticspecies/inland.phtml

The men that work here on the farm tell me that a Grackel's breast is deadly on Gar. They also tell me you have to keep a sharp eye out for the 'pajarero' or Game Warden so you can cut or ditch your line when he approaches. Therefore I assume that it is less than legal bait. I have no first hand knowledge about such things, just passing along...

Probably more like less than legal fishing without a license.

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I ask this in a nice and respectful way.

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Racist!

MasterAggie - Please don't have me banned. I repent. I repent.

There's a guy in the metroplex that has a guide service for Alligator Gar on the Trinity. They use deep sea equipment, steel leaders and live perch I believe. They catch some BIG s o b s.

I grew up on the same stretch of river that guadelupeag is talking about. I learned to shoot my .22 standing on a bluff blasting at spotted gar. There certainly is no shortage of them around there.

I don't know anyone around those parts that would consider eating a gar unless on a bet, and the only way we'd catch & release them would be to release them on the bank for the buzzards to eat.

I'm not sure why the Guadelupe in that stretch has so many gars... perhaps because what used to eat them (Alligators) aren't around any more?

I know a 6 year old that caught one completely on accident. It took her and two big, grown men to haul it in.

As far as I am concerned, gar are the only fish to keep carp and buffalo under control...I would rather have the gar than carp and buffalo.

I once caught two gar in the same day fly fishing on the Pedernales River west of Austin. I think I got them on a clouser and a wooly bugger.

I caught hundreds of them as a kid. We used a gallon glass jug with a finger hole. A couple of feet of wire and a treble hook loaded with a perch. We would put out ten jugs or so. When we got one on a jug we would cast until we hooked the wire.....game on. We caught a lot of big gar.

Easiest way to get one is with a bow, no joke.

I always had success using a spotlight and a .22 at night.

We shoot them with buckshot...

Be careful using a 22. They can and will ricochet off the water!

I grew up in Southwest Louisiana and we would use a net and a baseball bat, or sledgehammer (whichever you prefer). And I don't know how but my grandmother had this recipe to fry them and they were actually really good. I think she put some mustard and Tony's mixed in with the batter.