My buddy Ted and I fished in a sheltered bay that I had done some recon on so I knew it was loaded with gar. Armed with nylon rope flies we started casting at the prehistoric fish and got interest right off the bat. After many hits and misses we figured that we were waiting too long for the rope fly to do its magic (tangling up in their teeth) and we started giving the fish only one or two head shakes before laying into them. Even then we still had countless misses. A typical approach was to land the fly a foot or two in front of their nose then start stripping really fast. Usually they would turn on it and follow for only a second or two before unleashing a violent strike on the fly. I hear some people use ultra sharp hooks and actually hook them in a traditional manner which I may try sometime but the rope flies were a lot of fun to fish and got plenty of interest. The cool thing was that we were exclusively sight fishing to them. In fact, I do not think you would do very well just blind fishing for gar because we had to get the fly within a few feet of them to spark their interest, but once that was acheived you almost always had at the very least a good follow. Gar tend to come up and hang just under the surface of the water. If they are not moving you could mistake them for a log floating in the water. We even found the cruising ones just under the surface no more than a foot deep or so. They also occasionally come up and gulp air at the surface, hence they can live in poorly oxygenated water. I saw them do this many times. We also found out that they tend to pull a lot last ditch trickery at the boat which makes landing them fairly unpredictable. One time the fish freaked out and the hook on my fly got caught in my stripping apron so I had this fish suspended halfway in the water with his mouth pointed skyward right between my legs. It was pretty much like having a kitchen knife being waved around between my legs. I was most concerned about the fish putting puncture wounds in my waders. Luckily I got the hook out just in time before any more freak outs could occur. Since the hook was not actually being put to use we decided future flies would be tied on rings or some sort of tube fly setup. Around here gar are considered by the vast majority trash fish much like carp. I find them to be an very worthy opponent though and will continue to fish for them often. What an awesome fish!
My buddy Ted and I fished in a sheltered bay that I had done some recon on so I knew it was loaded with gar. Armed with nylon rope flies we started casting at the prehistoric fish and got interest right off the bat. After many hits and misses we figured that we were waiting too long for the rope fly to do its magic (tangling up in their teeth) and we started giving the fish only one or two head shakes before laying into them. Even then we still had countless misses. A typical approach was to land the fly a foot or two in front of their nose then start stripping really fast. Usually they would turn on it and follow for only a second or two before unleashing a violent strike on the fly. I hear some people use ultra sharp hooks and actually hook them in a traditional manner which I may try sometime but the rope flies were a lot of fun to fish and got plenty of interest. The cool thing was that we were exclusively sight fishing to them. In fact, I do not think you would do very well just blind fishing for gar because we had to get the fly within a few feet of them to spark their interest, but once that was acheived you almost always had at the very least a good follow. Gar tend to come up and hang just under the surface of the water. If they are not moving you could mistake them for a log floating in the water. We even found the cruising ones just under the surface no more than a foot deep or so. They also occasionally come up and gulp air at the surface, hence they can live in poorly oxygenated water. I saw them do this many times. We also found out that they tend to pull a lot last ditch trickery at the boat which makes landing them fairly unpredictable. One time the fish freaked out and the hook on my fly got caught in my stripping apron so I had this fish suspended halfway in the water with his mouth pointed skyward right between my legs. It was pretty much like having a kitchen knife being waved around between my legs. I was most concerned about the fish putting puncture wounds in my waders. Luckily I got the hook out just in time before any more freak outs could occur. Since the hook was not actually being put to use we decided future flies would be tied on rings or some sort of tube fly setup. Around here gar are considered by the vast majority trash fish much like carp. I find them to be an very worthy opponent though and will continue to fish for them often. What an awesome fish!
4 comments:
Glad you are back! Pretty scary fish!
That's awesome! Great pictures, too! I've been wanting to catch some gar on flies around here, but haven't gotten it done yet. Are those shortnose gar you were catching?
I think the ones we caught were shortnose however in Iowa we have longnose too according to the DNR. I believe I have seen some longnose because some of the fish I have seen looked to be much heavier than the 5 pound or so state record for the shortnose gar.
Great pics and gar is an awesome fish to catch if you are ready for a battle. Enjoyed the Post.
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