ALLIGATOR GAR -----THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES!!

[Cupajo]

It was warm weather and I was thinking that it would be a good time to set out a trotline across the lower East Carancahua River to see if the fishing was better a few miles down stream from where I usually fished. I found the old lines were in bad shape and far too short to reach across that expanse of water, so I put the fishing trip on hold for a while. As I was rambling around the neighborhood, I came across an old abandoned phone line that ran parallel to a country road a quarter mile or so from where we lived.

The poles only went for a short distance and the ended with the steel wire lying on the ground on both ends apparently abandoned. The poles were so close to the old shack where we lived that I could see them across the pasture from our back yard. We had been in the area for several years at this point and there had not been any work done on this stretch of wire and the poles were old and in bad shape. It

 

[david(tx)]

bow fish for gar over on the trinity around ft.worth.they have these hoists made onto their boats to get them out of the water.i think the state record for gar was set at that lake that straddles the texas/mexico border,amistad or falcon i think.if my memory serves me well i believe it was about 230 pounds.

 

[Cupajo]

Man! That would be some Gar!! I remember the hide being super tough. What kind of arrow heads do they use?

Do the have a line from the arrow to the winch?

Cupajo

 

[Royal]

I do remember one day on a creek off the St Johns River in Florida.

I was stationed at eh Jacksonville Naval Air Station for a while going to Aircraft Fundimental School in the Marines. I had an aunt and uncle living in a little village of San Mateo near Platka Florida. I would go there on weekends when I could. One day they took us, there were five of us, my aunt and uncle, cousin and her girlfriend and I in the boat and we set off up the mighty St Johns River.

If I remember right there was a creek, as they call them down there, running from Silver Springs to the St Johns River. That is the way I remember it anyway. I do remember that where it entered the river it was impossible to see as there were a lot of brush and such that the creek ran through as it entered the river.

It was just beautiful as I remember it. Crystal clear water and lots of flow. I think it might have been 8 ft deep or so and we made our way up river. I just looked at Google Earth and it looks like it might have run to Silver Springs but it was through a bunch of lakes and swamps.

Anyway, we had the creek all to ourselves and we pulled into shore and tied up. We stayed in the boat as it was so thick that it would have been rough to walk and with the cottonmouth problem we just fished from the boat. It was a beautiful day.

Beautiful but HOT! There was little breeze back there as the trees were cypriss as I remember and fairly tall. Since we were catching little and the water was so dang inviting, fast moving and clear and all we decided to go swimmin. Well it was clear but it was running through a snake and gator infested area so I figured the girls ought to dive in first. They thought otherwise and it was so hot that I decided to take the plunge. I stood up to dive in when we all heard a Wooooosh! and a huge form surfaced right next to the boat. It sorta rolled instead of splashed but that sucker was big!

I think about it today and I still can not understand how it got so dang close to the boat in that clear water without us seeing it. Maybe it was hidden under the boat or something. I have no idea how big that sucker was but I do know that three feet of its broad back was exposed at one time and it was making a dive, sorta came up and its head out of the water a bit and then rolled forward. That sucker was as wide as my thigh and just made this 18 year old Marine decide that it was hotter in the water than in the boat.

We never saw it again but I know that was at least a hundred and fifty ft long and weighed 2000 lbs. I might be wrong with that but I just Googled and they say they ----The alligator gar is the largest species of gar and is the largest exclusively freshwater fish in North America. It can be as long as eight to twelve feet and often weighs at least 100 pounds at maturity. The current world record alligator gar weighed 279 pounds and was caught in the Rio Grande River in 1951. Even larger alligator gars

 

[Cupajo]

It's fascinating to learn that there are other people "out there" who have had experiences similar to my own. Wow!!

Cupajo

 

[Micheal_R]

I have had a few experiences with them over the years.. : One tore a boat to pieces, another took my buddy for a 'drag' underwater....

They have a micro brain in a huge body too. :

fair winds

Micheal