GIANT GATOR GAR !!!!!!!!!

[WM75Guy]

I remembered that photo from the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center here in Athens that had a display about it. The gar was shot by the 2 guys bowfishing for a video at Sam Rayborn Reservoir in Texas. It weighed in at 244.5 pounds and was 8'2" long. It was not a record in Texas as it was not caught by rod and reel. The Broken Bow Lake caption was used by someone as a hoax about people disappearing at Broken Bow Lake.

Giant Alligator Gar Photographs

 

[sldva00]

Shot a 7 footer with a bow about 15 years ago in one of our local "Resecas". Resacas are dried up river beds that the irrigation district fills up with water from the Rio Grande for irrigation purposes... been going on since the early 1900's.

The link is not of me, but of another gar caught in the same resaca I shot mine from.

OH-MY-GAR! | San Benito News

 

[foreman Etexas]

Biggest one we ever caught on the trinty river was almost 6ft and 145lbs

 

[Bird]

I caught my 4' one from land under the Causeway Bridge on Lake Ponchartrain can fishing. We would bait a few hooks on lines with fresh mullet and toss them out in the water and then wrap the line around a beer can with a few pebbles in it that would rattle when something got the line.

We had leaders on the lines because we were shark fishing when we got him.

We skinned it and my mother baked it in a red gravy and it was pretty good.:licking:

This was in 1967 so I am not sure if there are still any gars left in that area.

I think 5' or so was the biggest my Dad brought home when I was a kid and the last time I caught and ate any was a couple of 2 footers from Lake Texoma about 50 years ago. They aren't easy to "skin"; more like "shelling" but very good meat.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Back in 1946 when I was a kid I went fishing with my Grandpa and uncles on the Saline River in MO, not too far up river from where it dumps into the Mississippi. That was back before all the regulations and they were meat fisherman. A weekend would net a couple hundred pounds of fish, mostly channel cat. They would set out 200 hooks in 1/4 mile of river using meat bait of what ever we had or scrap fish we caught. Caught Gars regular, 6-10 every night. Most 3-4' long. Chopped up with axes and used for bait. My granddad talked about catching the big ones but said they were all fished out years earlier during the war when everyone was desperate for protien you did not need ration stamps to get. How they caught them then would have you in jail today. Favorite means was carbide, a little water in a sealed can or jug. Big explosion concussion wave brought everything near to the surface. Dynamite was in short supply during the war for domestic use even though no licensce was needed back then.

Ron

 

[Bird]

Ron, it was probably about that same time; late 1940s anyway when my Dad used to go with a group of men, including a game warden, to seine a river in Oklahoma (I think it was the South Canadian River, but don't remember for sure). They were allowed to take out all the "rough" fish, which back then included the gar, carp, and even catfish over a certain size. So Dad brought home some pretty big gar and carp, both of which are quite good eating if caught in clean water.

 

[MossRoad]

A lot of folks confuse alligator gar with other gar species. Some other gar species regularly get over 3ft. Longnose can get over 6'.

Here's a distribution map of the typical range of the alligator gar.

Compare that to the typical range of the longnose gar.

Here's a pretty nice website dedicated to gar. :thumbsup:
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