Playing With Gar

Hang with a fishy crowd.

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Gary2sons
Posts: 297
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 4:44 pm
Location: Camden County, Missouri

Playing With Gar

Post by Gary2sons »

We have gar at the fish hatchery I work at so decided to have some fun and get a few pics. They are show fish that go to Bass Pro and zoo's so couldn't use hooks. My pole was a fiberglass flag pole from a golf course with about 6 feet of monofilament line. I started by squatting down with the pole in one hand and the camera resting on my other knee. That didn't work out so had to have some help with taking the pics.

For bait I tied on about a 6 inch hybrid bluegill through the lip with no hook so as not to harm the fish. We had a blast fishing like this. One thing I learned was the gar never got spooked except for of course the one that took the bait. That shows how really smart fish are if I had used a hook they would have spooked for sure after catching a couple. The pond also had a tremendous algae bloom which explains the somewhat green water.

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This last pic was my favorite! This gar was airborne! Notice my bait in the upper part of the pic!

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Hope this helps the fish forum, I really have a lot to post here but don't want to be the only one!

Happy fishing and thanks for looking!

Gary
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Gary2sons
Posts: 297
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 4:44 pm
Location: Camden County, Missouri

Re: Playing With Gar

Post by Gary2sons »

Another pic that somehow didn't come up the first time

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Thanks again!
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pete
Posts: 745
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:11 pm
Location: cape cod ma.

Re: Playing With Gar

Post by pete »

Holy crap!! That looks like fun!
Does the hatchery breed the gar or raise wild caught juveniles??
They are such cool fish that so many fishermen look down on.
gretzkyrh4
Posts: 661
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 12:17 pm
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Playing With Gar

Post by gretzkyrh4 »

Gary2sons wrote:For bait I tied on about a 6 inch hybrid bluegill through the lip with no hook so as not to harm the fish.
The bluegill may disagree.

Great pics!

Chris
VICtort
Posts: 691
Joined: July 2nd, 2010, 6:48 pm
Location: AZ.

Re: Playing With Gar

Post by VICtort »

I had no idea gar could be so athletic. Really cool, for all its diversity, the west coast where I fish is deficient in gars. BTW, what kind of gar are those?

Thanks for posting, this may be a first here, fishing with out hooks...Vic :thumb:
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Gary2sons
Posts: 297
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 4:44 pm
Location: Camden County, Missouri

Re: Playing With Gar

Post by Gary2sons »

pete wrote:Holy crap!! That looks like fun!
Does the hatchery breed the gar or raise wild caught juveniles??
They are such cool fish that so many fishermen look down on.
Yes we breed the gar but sometimes get some new stock from commercial fisherman. Fun fish to raise, just not that much demand for gar.
gretzkyrh4 wrote:
Gary2sons wrote:For bait I tied on about a 6 inch hybrid bluegill through the lip with no hook so as not to harm the fish.
The bluegill may disagree.

Great pics!

Chris
I think we only used that one bluegill and a shad that day. For that we learned a few things plus got some interesting pics!
VICtort wrote:I had no idea gar could be so athletic. Really cool, for all its diversity, the west coast where I fish is deficient in gars. BTW, what kind of gar are those?

Thanks for posting, this may be a first here, fishing with out hooks...Vic :thumb:
Vic, they were longnose gar but we also raise shortnose and spotted gar. Probably the most fun ever for me fishing without hooks! And like I said earlier the fact they did not get spooked and kept biting was very educational!

Thanks for the comments!

Gary
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