Thought this was pretty neat. Sorry if it’s been posted already
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Melanistic alligator gar
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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.
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Originally posted by stickman View PostWife 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.
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.
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Originally posted by stickman View PostWife 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.
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Originally posted by stickman View PostWife 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 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.
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Originally posted by stickman View PostWife 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.
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Originally posted by stickman View PostWife 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.
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Originally posted by stickman View PostWife 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.
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.
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