So I cooked up a gar...

[Carp-fisher]

Yeah don't do it.

I caught a 3 lb shortnose this morning and decided what the heck I'll try anything once. First off, trying to clean one of those is like trying to cut through a hardened leather belt. I'd say its impossible with a normal fillet knife. I managed to get a fillet with my electric knife and sawing as hard as I could. The meat looked really good...firm and white. I threw it on the grill with some channel cat. Once the gar meat cooked, it hardened to the consistency of one of those solid rubber balls. I couldn't chew it. Maybe I did something wrong, but just the difficulty of cleaning makes the whole process seem like a waste of energy.

Anyone else here weird enough to try gar?

[carpmanjake]

Yeah don't do it.

I caught a 3 lb shortnose this morning and decided what the heck I'll try anything once. First off, trying to clean one of those is like trying to cut through a hardened leather belt. I'd say its impossible with a normal fillet knife. I managed to get a fillet with my electric knife and sawing as hard as I could. The meat looked really good...firm and white. I threw it on the grill with some channel cat. Once the gar meat cooked, it hardened to the consistency of one of those solid rubber balls. I couldn't chew it. Maybe I did something wrong, but just the difficulty of cleaning makes the whole process seem like a waste of energy.

Anyone else here weird enough to try gar?

you did something wrong. lol.

there is a HSOforum showing how to easily clean gar. and it involves using a saw and tin snips. lol

here is a recipe that was also on the site

"Simple Gar Recipe: Another great gar recipe is to slice your gar meat up into nuggets. Purchase some Louisiana crab boil from your local grocery store. Boil some water with the crab boil spices. Once the water has came to a rolling boil put in your gar meat. Let it boil for just a few minutes (depends on the amount) and then turn off the stove and let the gar meat soak in the crab boil for about 5 minutes. Melt a stick of butter. Take your gar nuggets and dip them in the butter. This will actually have a lobster taste to it. Delicious!!!"

[JimBuck]

Ufdah. I don't think I could go through the process of filleting one as I'd probably saw a finger off before getting a fillet from the deal. I'd definitely give it a taste though. Cheers on the effort.

[ec30_06]

I heard of one person eating a gar before this, and they said it was "not to bad"

[Carp-fisher]

Well I could see trying the crab boil technique. Like I said before, the meat looked really good. Maybe I overcooked it or something. Those gar are some unique and viscous fish...

[Carp-fisher]

One a side note, I also grilled up a couple of 4lb channel cats (bigger than I usually keep--I go for the 1 and 2 lbers)---put them on tinfoil with some butter, lime juice, and taco seasoning. Then made some fish tacos. I'd put those tacos up against any restaurant fish tacos in the cities here. Delicious!

[catflisher]

Cat good!

[RumRiverRat]

Gar the other white meat!