Alligator Gar

[Jim Thompson 22]

https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2008/nov/legend/

 

"Townsend Miller's 1954 longnose gar record still stands today."

 

https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2008/nov/legend/

 

Reading about alligator gar records and thinking about how we used to just toss 'em back when they ended up on our hooks. Anybody ever eat any of these strange beasts?

[TwiceHorn 31480]

Never caught one, never ate one.  Spotted, longnose, or alligator.  I have seen some videos.

Their hide is tough as hell and they are bony.  The big ones, like a lot of fish, have dark streaks near the spine that you are supposed to avoid.

My grandfather supposedly liked buffalo, which is similar to native carp, and po folks used to eat em all.

An even more freaky looking fish, to me anyway, and a close relative, is the bowfin.

Apparently, there are consumption bans on alligator gar caught in the Trinity and Lake Livingston.  https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/management/alligator-gar/edible.phtml

Of course you can catch them and the smaller species just about anywhere.

 

Edited January 25, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[woohorn 1131]

Caught plenty (or at least caught the same one plenty) in Rummel Creek growin up. Even at 8 I wasn't stoopid enough to try and eat them.

[The Ace of Aces 5184]

We’d catch them often on Lake Fork crappie fishing, we’d cut the line and restring. Fuck those prehistoric things.

[Whatever 700]

Used to see them at my buddy's place on the San Gabriel when we camped there as a kid. Also caught one on a drop line in Brushy Creek one time. It was a 3-4 foot Alligator Gar. Scary as hell in a paddle boat when you're 12. Never ate one though.

[RMac5 1551]

I caught one when I was young, scared the crap out of me. When I got him to the surface and close to the boat I got scared and handed my dad the fishing pole.

[CHIEF 5089]

Growing up, we had about 1/4 mile of Brazos River frontage above Lake Whitney. My Dad always kept a trotline out. We had a small 8 foot jonboat, and I remember him catching one so big, that he had to get in the water with it, rope the tail, and handed me the rope. When we pulled it in, it was as long as the boat, I estimate that that gar weighed right around 200 lbs. Biggest freshwater fish I have ever seen in person to this day.

CHIEF

[TwiceHorn 31480]

Years ago, Lake Lavon had an overabundance of gar and TPWD or CoE put a bounty on them

They showed this guy on the news that put out baited hooks tied to bleach jugs and staked to the bottom.  He'd leave em overnight and then come up on them in his boat.  If there was one on, the jug would take off like a small-scale Jaws.

He'd let the fish tire out, lasso the jug, pull it up and either billy it or shoot it, I disremember which.  He'd then strap the fish to the side of the boat.

He'd come back to the dock with 2-3 good-sized gar strapped to each side of his boat.

The whole jug thing was really memorable though.

[tx 3 putt 76960]

I’ve caught plenty, always throw them back. One time I was Shore / pier fishing and old man asked if he could have the gar I’d just caught, I gave it to him 

I disapprove of sport hunting for ‘big’ gars. 

Edited January 25, 2020 by tx 3 putt

[CooterBrown 18013]

Years ago I saw a YouTube video of a coonass frying up a gar backstrap. Took a fuck load of effort to cut it out. Used tin snips to get through the skin IIRC.

[Dewey 3286]

Soak em in buttermilk overnight,  that seems to be the common answer for every shitty fish meat. 

[6th Street 6408]

8 hours ago, RMac5 said:

I caught one when I was young, scared the crap out of me. When I got him to the surface and close to the boat I got scared and handed my dad the fishing pole.

Never caught one, but that would be my reaction even today. Mean looking with those sharp ass teeth

[Bill Brasky 1449]

it has been awhile, but if I remember right there were a lot of small bones to pick around when you had to eat it 

also, I do not recommend trying to cook or eat freshwater eel.   nasty.   

[futureman 22464]

16 hours ago, Jim Thompson said:

Reading about alligator gar records and thinking about how we used to just toss 'em back when they ended up on our hooks.

who is keeping gar?  is anyone not throwing them back?  

[CooterBrown 18013]

who is keeping gar?  is anyone not throwing them back?  

We always used to just leave them on the bank to die.

[futureman 22464]

fair enough. 

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

This got me looking up the bounty thing and I came across this picture.

"Alligator gar caught in Moon Lake by Bill Valverde, January 1, 1951, Rio Grande, Texas"

Jesus Fuck that's a big fish.

[Deej 76796]

That photo always has me wondering. Is that a small child behind it? Look at the apparent length of his legs. Big fish, no doubt, but something seems off 

[TwiceHorn 31480]

2 minutes ago, Deej said:

That photo always has me wondering. Is that a small child behind it? Look at the apparent length of his legs. Big fish, no doubt, but something seems off 

He's sitting on something and his legs are splayed forward.

[Deej 76796]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

He's sitting on something and his legs are splayed forward.

Ok, you're right. He's still back far enough to make the gar look bigger.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Deej

[TwiceHorn 31480]

Just now, Deej said:

Ok, you're right.

I had the same thought at one time.  There are some tricky fish pix out there, but I don't think that's one of them.

[Matuka 1310]

Used to fly fish for sandbass on the Brazos below Whitney dam.  There is a large sandbar that leads downstream where sandies will sometimes congregate.  But you have to wade across the river to get there.  We'd arrive just before dawn,  More than once, these 2-3 foot gar would just be lurking in the grassy shallows and we'd damn near step on one crossing the river.  They jump violently and loudly scaring the bejeebus out of us.  It was unnerving, but woke us up.

[BurntOrange&White 39933]

Soak em in buttermilk overnight,  that seems to be the common answer for every shitty fish meat. 

Doesn’t work with them. You gotta cook it a certain way or it’s going to taste bad

[Pescado_Rojo 19416]

My maternal grandfather used to catch the shit out of them on the Sabine around our camp outside Deweyville, and my grandmother used to make gar balls. Kind of like a crab cake or salmon croquet. I just found this recipe on the internet, but it's pretty close to what my grandfather would make. He died when I was 6, and I haven't had one since, but I remember liking them back then. 

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 lbs Garfish meat
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 packet of fish fry or a mixture of 1/3 cup flour and 1/3 cup yellow cornmeal seasoned with 1/2 teasppon each black pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika (optional)
• Oil for frying

Grind garfish in meat grinder or food processor or scrape meat with spoon off bone.

Add the onion, bell pepper and garlic. Mix well and form into balls (golf ball size or larger if desired). If making coating from scratch, combine in a bowl the dry ingrediients.

Roll in the fish fry or seasoned corn meal coating and deep fry until golden brown.

[Bevo&Pevo 5150]

Heard they make good cat food.  

[Reagan1k 3024]

Bleed them out as soon as you catch them.  As posted above,  cut meat into chunks, pick meat almost like picking a crab- make gar balls.  

Meats good -sweet white meat.  Pain in the ass but delicious In the hands of any semi- competent coon ass. 

They’ll ruin a good knife.  Better to use a sawz-all to cut steaks before picking.  No filleting these dinosaurs. 

 

[EZ$ 2105]

In HS, we’d catch them and give them to a school janitor and he’d whack at them with a machete to get through their armor.  Biggest one we caught was around 100 lbs.  

They commercial fished them out of Choke Canyon back in the 90s and send the meat to Mexico.  

[Spaulding Smails 1552]

Rocha's El Catan Bar & Grill in Laredo serves it.  Pretty damn good.  Only restaurant I've every seen serve it on the menu.

[EZ$ 2105]

Also, don’t believe people when they say gar don’t attack people. I’ve seen it first hand.
Late 90s during a South Texas drought, we were walking along a dry riverbed and came up to a pool probably the size of a baseball diamond and 2-3 foot deep. As we walked around the pool with about two foot of land between the water and the steep riverbank, a wake starts going straight for my buddy that was walking in front. I was a little concerned at first thinking it was an alligator (we would regularly walk up on 8-10+ footers), but before I could really say anything, a 4 foot alligator gar darted out of the water at his feet slashing around slinging mud everywhere. He was younger than us (probably only 14 years old) and was screaming at the top of his lungs like a 7 year old girl during the entire 10–15 seconds of the gar going crazy right at his feet before it finally retreated back to the water. The rest of us were crying laughing, but he’s been traumatized about gar ever since.  
I guess the gar was trapped in that evaporating pool hungry as shit and saw/heard/felt something at the edge of the water that he thought was a rabbit, possum, small deer and went after it?? 

[SimonBolivar 10958]

A lot of people go bowfishing for them around here in the Brazos. I've never understood how that worked on water that is about as clear as a toilet bowl after 5 straight days of gas station roller food.

[Bill Brasky 1449]

21 hours ago, futureman said:

who is keeping gar?  is anyone not throwing them back?  

when my uncle Hans was still alive we would take any gar we caught to him.   he also liked it when we brought him softshell turtles and carp that we caught.   he would pickle them

[deft 6850]

I grew up on 10 acres in Mexia countryside.  We had a rockpit and partial access to another one.  I would come home everyday and go bass fishing but always catch and release.  On more than one occasion, I'd walk up on 2 (always 2) just hovering in place in the shallows.  Fucking pre-historic looking beasts. 

[Hornius Emeritus 12462]

20 hours ago, hopkinsnhorns said:

This got me looking up the bounty thing and I came across this picture.

"Alligator gar caught in Moon Lake by Bill Valverde, January 1, 1951, Rio Grande, Texas"

Jesus Fuck that's a big fish.

I don't think that is the gar that Valverde caught that day.  His gar was 7'9" long and 279 .lbs.  This one looks to be considerably bigger than that.  Here's a photo of Valverde with his gar.

[Deej 76796]

5 hours ago, EZ$ said:

Also, don’t believe people when they say gar don’t attack people. I’ve seen it first hand.
Late 90s during a South Texas drought, we were walking along a dry riverbed and came up to a pool probably the size of a baseball diamond and 2-3 foot deep. As we walked around the pool with about two foot of land between the water and the steep riverbank, a wake starts going straight for my buddy that was walking in front. I was a little concerned at first thinking it was an alligator (we would regularly walk up on 8-10+ footers), but before I could really say anything, a 4 foot alligator gar darted out of the water at his feet slashing around slinging mud everywhere. He was younger than us (probably only 14 years old) and was screaming at the top of his lungs like a 7 year old girl during the entire 10–15 seconds of the gar going crazy right at his feet before it finally retreated back to the water. The rest of us were crying laughing, but he’s been traumatized about gar ever since.  
I guess the gar was trapped in that evaporating pool hungry as shit and saw/heard/felt something at the edge of the water that he thought was a rabbit, possum, small deer and went after it?? 

Must have caught a reflection off your buddy's ankle bracelet.

[Gladeite 375]

When I was a kid, my dad, brother and I ran throw lines up and down the Sabine River all the time.  We gave the gar and buffalo to poor families that lived nearby.  They seemed appreciative and always wanted more.   I have  never tried it.  

[Lat22 4014]

We caught three in our canal at Tiki Island last summer. Only got two of them up on the dock. The third one was waaaaaay to big to lift without gaffing it, and I wasn’t going to gaff it. We let em all go.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

How do you set the hook in one of these?  Jaw looks to be solid bone.

[BurntOrange&White 39933]

How do you set the hook in one of these?  Jaw looks to be solid bone.

You kind of just hope it doesn’t come out. They’re very fun to catch

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

I've only ever had one on my line, off a boat dock in the waterways a little east of New Orleans.  I tried to set it, and it took off, but then after a decent run, it must have spit the hook.  Probably just as well as I was in no ways prepared for landing one of these monsters.

[Brisketexan 105144]

I hate seeing the folks bowfish 'em.  They just shoot them and stack them on the bank.  They're cool fish -- if you ain't gonna eat it, don't kill it.  I like seeing them in the waterways.

[TwiceHorn 31480]

1 hour ago, hopkinsnhorns said:

How do you set the hook in one of these?  Jaw looks to be solid bone.

I have heard that some gar anglers use frayed nylon rope near the hook/bait.  Tangles in their teeth.

[TwiceHorn 31480]

18 hours ago, Lat22 said:

We caught three in our canal at Tiki Island last summer. Only got two of them up on the dock. The third one was waaaaaay to big to lift without gaffing it, and I wasn’t going to gaff it. We let em all go.

That last one a longnose?

[davidg 4038]

Dad used to catch some good sized gar out of the Trinity river below Hwy 287 in the late '60s.  There was a river bend call the Swinging Bridge Hole named for a suspension foot bridge across the river that allowed foot traffic to the oil and gas wells on the west bank of the river.    As a teenager we went a few times and caught one a least 80lb but eventually access to that spot in the river was shut down.   I've seen some big ones bowfishing but never stuck a huge one.  

Below is a pic of his largest one and a blurb in the local paper.

 

 

[davidg 4038]

Oh yeah, to the link's in the  OP's post, Dad claimed he caught another gar once that was just over 6' but about half the weight of that alligator gar.  He didn't know about any records for them until a bit later and he tried to find the head to take to a state biologist to check out but he couldn't recover it.

[Deej 76796]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

I have heard that some gar anglers use frayed nylon rope near the hook/bait.  Tangles in their teeth.

Yep. That's what we used to do. 

[Lat22 4014]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

That last one a longnose?

Never even crossed my mind.  Looks like it might be.

[BurntOrange&White 39933]

I feel like they know what they are doing too when the spit the hook. It’s always when you’re close to landing them.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

My dad used to talk about swimming in the local river as a boy, and 5-6' gar would be swimming nearby, said it always scared him shitless.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Onboard 2.0

[davidg 4038]

10 minutes ago, Bevo VIII said:

I feel like they know what they are doing too when the spit the hook. It’s always when you’re close to landing them.

AG will hold a bait in its mouth for a long time.  You gotta let them swallow the hook completely or use a small, very strong circle hook and catch them in the corner of the mouth.  We tried those big treble hooks that are used for snagging and the gar would either bend the points down to the shaft or just round them off.   Longnose and spotted gar can be caught with the frayed rope pretty easy.

[Ths71 472]

When I was a kid we would go to Wright Patman Lake when they were letting water out of the spillway.
Guys would be lined up on both sides snagging them with treble hooks as they came down the spillway.


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