Melanistic alligator gar

[Jcjohnson]

https://dev-media.everest.com/jet-black-melanistic-alligator-gar-caught-in-texas/

Thought this was pretty neat. Sorry if it’s been posted already

[GarGuy]

I have seen that. Very cool fish. We run into one of those every few years. Not all are that shiny black though.

[Gumbo Man]

That’s amazing. Supper trophy for sure.

[Walker]

Looks like some gorgeous from a foreign country. Head is not like any gar I've ever seen.

[stickman]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

[muzzlebrake]

Caught a nice sized melanistic spotted gar in Lake Bonham a few years back on a jug line. Could still barely see some spots. Thought at first it was a gator gar but after closer inspection saw it was a spot. Very similar bill shape but skinnier.

[MooseontheLoose]

Never seen a gar like that before. What a cool fish.

[RR 314]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

Man, the gar on LBJ must be really easy compared to others. A lot more spotted than alligator, but we use 4/0 treble no matter the size. We use live bluegill or cut gizzard shad under a popping cork and sight cast. Usually get a pick up within 30 seconds to a minute of cast.

Gat Guy and others will have much better advice, but we find it fairly easy to hook up. Haven't hooked any monsters and 70 pounds or so is the biggest we have landed.

[scotth89]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

Cut buffalo. If you think he has ran with it long enough, let him keep running.

[RifleBowPistol]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

I have had a trouble getting them to bite on bait, just as much trouble to actually hook them. One night on the Fulton Beach pier, there was a huge one swimming around the pier for hours. Before we figured out it was there, it cleaned off about five trout, off of someone else's stringer, and got seven trout off of our stringer. When it was doing that, it was staying deep and moving very slow. We could see what looked like a huge shadow below the water. After it cleaned off everyone's stringers it finally came to the surface. That thing was huge. We only had light spinning reels. I tried to catch anyway. I threw live perch at it, all around it. Every time it would just swim right past the bait. I finally decided if it was not going to take the bait, I was going to hit it with the bait. So I cast out and bounced the perch off it's head. It spun around very fast and grabbed the perch. Then went back to swimming around very slowly. It swam around for at least 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, with the perch, and hook in it's mouth. Acted like it was not hooked. I suspect, the gar, thought the thing poking it inside it's bill/mouth, were the spines of the perch's fins. I tried to horse it in a couple times, I accomplished nothing, trying that, with that light spinning rod and reel. I never was able to set the hook. After about 15 minutes, the gar opened it's mouth and released the perch, then kept swimming around, no different than, when it had the perch and hook in it's mouth. I never phased the gar, with the light tackle I was using.

I have fished some of the ponds that used to be around Ingleside and Aransas, when I was a kid. Back in the mid 80s, there used to be a bunch of small ponds outside of town, between Ingleside and AP. 90% of those ponds dried up, in the 90s. I used to fish multiple of those ponds. Most of those ponds had alligator gar in them, often there would be one or two very large gar in the pond. I found the gar in those ponds were very hard to get them to bite on a hook. At the time, it seemed like they were not interested in eating, in the heat of the day. But they would always swim up to my bait and look it over, numerous times, but 90% of the time they would not take it. One of the times I did get a large gar to hit my bait, which I was using dead perch. That we had caught in another pond, closer to the house, that had no gar. The only way I got that large gar to take the bait was to cast at him and hit him with it. This was years before the incident on the Fulton beach pier. I was using a 10 ft. surf rod and reel. I tried to set the hook, fought the gar, for maybe 30 to 45 seconds, then he released the bait and went back to what he had been doing before.
I concluded they are fairly smart. If they see a fish in the water, with a hook in, it and a cork, they leave it alone. Until I hit them with the bait, then they get mad and attack it. I have only landed maybe two alligator gar. I have caught quite a few spotted gar, caught numerous of those greenish/silver gar, that live in the bays, that come up to the lights at night. I have had a lot of trouble getting alligator gar to bite on a hook then land them. I think every time I did manage to catch one, I had no idea what I had hooked. Because I was fishing on the bottom. There are guys who have definitely got catching alligator gar down, very well, I am not one of them. I have caught spotted gar on live bait, dead bait and lures, alligator gar, are a different story.

I knew numerous areas down there, that back in the 80s, were overrun with big gar, but I am sure the numbers are way down, compared to what they used to be. The two river, we used to fish, were packed full of gar. But, having that many gar, was probably keeping the number of game fish down.

[Jcjohnson]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

Have no experience with alligator gar but we caught a few long nose on cut bait with steel leaders about a ft long with a small treble hook and a bobber just above the leader. Trick was to let them run with it a mile before you tried to set the hook.

[Muddy Bud]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

Get with poco Chris. That dude can pull gar out of a pot hole in the street.

[DTala]

I have killed a solid black Longnose Gar with a bow in Alabama. We used to see a couple every year on the Cahaba River.

[MnM]

Cool fish
Never seen one like that

[GarGuy]

Wife is dead set on catching a gar on rod and reel. We’ve tried fresh shad, mullet, etc. with only having a few runs and zero hook ups. Any particular bait better than the other? Type of rigs/leaders, hooks? We are at the southern most part of the Nueces river near the bay. They literally been rolling around us and we never got bit.

You should be able to hook up there. Big bait. Front half of a tilapia or really big mullet. 3o treble on 2ft of 80lb wire leader works fine. Just one barb in the skin and rest exposed. No weight. Let the f
Gar run with reel open until it lays down. I generally wait till it starts moving again. Let he gar pull tight which moves the leader out of his teeth and to corner of mouth.

Set hook hard, then do it again. Hang on! The biggest issue with gar spitting bait is feeling resistance during the run.