How To Catch Alligator Gar

Gar Fishing: Years ago the few gars' sportsmen took were either shot, speared, or "noosed." Because of their tough mouths, fishermen found getting hooks into them very difficult. Even worse, the fish's teeth would easily snip ordinary line. So "noosing" came about. A heavy wire leader is used and looped to form a snare. A bait fish is attached to the noose, which is fished on bottom. Along comes a gar, grabs the bait, and the angler sets the snare with a strong jerk. Result: the gar is lassoed, not hooked, around his upper bill.

But more recently, gar has provided a new kind of sport fishing in the Southern half of the United States. Inland fishermen, starved for a chance to take really big stuff on rod and reel, turned to the gars to bring a kind of "deep sea" fishing to fresh water. They use standard deep-sea tackle - a short stiff rod with long butt, heavy line, and salt water multiplying reel. They bait up, usually, with part or all of a fresh water drum. The hook is big and strong.

They sit in a boat on one of the river's broader pools, and simply relax after the bait is cast. In this kind of fishing, you don't go to your fish. The gar comes to you. And, very often, he comes in a hurry.

Alligator Gar - Big and Fierce

The alligator gar is one of the largest and fiercest fish found in North America's fresh water. It is probably exceeded in size only by the White or Oregon sturgeon. Hooking one is akin to suddenly turning a river upside down. A gar seizes your bait, and you let him run his way for a while. He goes off, with your reel in free spool, simply mouthing your bait fish. But soon he halts - stretched out like a log down there on the bottom - and swallows the bait. He'll know, by now, that something's wrong. Likely he'll start swimming off slowly. So you set the hook. You throw the reel into gear, take up the slack, and yank your rod tip up and back - hard. You do this three or four times just as in setting the barb to an ocean-going marlin. You have your fish hooked now, and here he comes - up and out - throwing water a mile high and changing the pattern of the river. One moment the river was placid and calm; now it is frothed and ripped and torn by an infuriated monster fish that should have gone out with Neanderthal Man.

Your line is burning off the reel, and you keep your thumb clear to escape burning. The gar can't go anywhere, anyway. He runs 50 or 75 or maybe 100 yards, then goes down to sulk and think. But temper gets the better of him and he comes up again, and you sit there and look in awe and wonder. This is a fish?

But your big rod and reel, and the arm-pumping you've been doing, begin to tell, and 30 or 40 minutes later you have him at the boat. But he's still green, still tough, and fighting mad - so the fight continues right at boat-side. He's down, then up - coming out and standing on his tail - baleful eyes staring, teeth gleaming. It begins to look as though the fight can go forever, until someone in the boat lets go with a .22 pistol or makes a quick grab with a heavy gaff. You sit back now, rubbing your aching arms and grinning. It isn't safe to try to boat a gar, so the boat is run to shore and you haul him up on the beach. There stretches 6 feet or so of living, gruesome armor-plate which you beat, fair and square, to a frazzle.

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