Gar Invasion

[WasteManagement]

Out catting a few weeks ago.

Invaded by a sworm of Gar. There were 3-4 of us fishing most of the night and 2 fished all night. Getting hit about every 15-20 min all night long. Landed 5 Gar and the rest were non-hook ups or break offs. One landed never had the hook in its mouth just held on to the cut bait long enough to net. Longest landed was 40 + inches. Could see surface gar chasing up minows. There had to have been hundreds in the area.

Cut bait, live suckers, secret 7, sudden impact and no cats. I know this place and we should have landed at least one flat or channel. Should have landed 10-20.  Not even a nudge on S7 or SI.

Ever happen to anyone else? Was fun to a part of it once, those things chased away everyting.

[aanderud]

I've never had gar invade so much as to scare the other fish away, but I have seem them thick as thieves around the boat at times, snapping at the surface and whatnot.  I think a lot of the live bait clicker runs that grab your bait and run with it for 1.5 seconds and drop it are actually gar, but I rarely land one.  I think I've caught only 1 or two in my 8 years of catfishing actually.

[GeluNumber1]

If you wouldn't mind, could you PM me what spot this was? I've never caught a shortnose gar, and I'd love to land one. 

[esoxrocks01]

I too would like a PM of the location.  I've been meaning to get the gar (shortnose/longnose) off my bucket list.  The only hard part is finding these dinosaurs.  Any help with that would be greatly appreciated (can't wait to bust out my rope lure!).

[slipperybob]

This has happened to me before.  It was like one day, my rods were bending like I've hooked up big.  However after a brief minute long fight I come up empty.  Happened for several hours until I finally pulled one in and netted that gar.  Caught a few more like that afterwards.  I finally give up, cuz it's just no fun getting a hard tug just to end up empty.

[Stick500]

I just pulled one in on a big circle hook (chub) and could see the hook was down in it's throat. Bummed that I was going to probably kill the fish and lose my expensive hook, but when on I tugged on the line everything popped right out- the gar wasn't hooked at all!

[minky]

Kinda cool, any uses for gar?