Man catches 300 lb alligator gar.

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RickN

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We use to fish for these things off our dock when we lived in Texas. Biggest one was caught by my father. 6 ft 8 but I do not remember the weight. Darn things were tough to kill. Glad I never ran into one this size.


Payton Moore set sail down a Houston bayou, determined to catch one of the largest alligator gars Texas has potentially ever seen.


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Gar.jpg
Gar 2.jpg
 

Perplexed

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Hmmm. He released it after lassoing it ashore, in the spirit of conservation. But I wonder if that gar’s chances of survival have been reduced due to the stress of capture?
 

RickN

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Hmmm. He released it after lassoing it ashore, in the spirit of conservation. But I wonder if that gar’s chances of survival have been reduced due to the stress of capture?
That thing did not even notice! I have seen them kept out of water over night, and still swim off the next day. I have seen a 250 lb farm boy try to kill one with a double bit axe blow to the head. The axe bounced off and hours later the fish swam away. One of the toughest fish there is I believe.

Growing up I knew a family that ate them. When ever my father caught a smaller one, he gave it to them. The father of that family told be he either had to shoot them in the head, or just wait hours for it to die. To me, they are nothing like the fresh water alligator gar.
 

dennishoddy

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Hmmm. He released it after lassoing it ashore, in the spirit of conservation. But I wonder if that gar’s chances of survival have been reduced due to the stress of capture?
Probably survived just fine. Gar come to the surface a lot to gulp air when stagnant waters have a low oxygen content. Their air bladders act as a rudimentary lung.
 

dennishoddy

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That thing did not even notice! I have seen them kept out of water over night, and still swim off the next day. I have seen a 250 lb farm boy try to kill one with a double bit axe blow to the head. The axe bounced off and hours later the fish swam away. One of the toughest fish there is I believe.

Growing up I knew a family that ate them. When ever my father caught a smaller one, he gave it to them. The father of that family told be he either had to shoot them in the head, or just wait hours for it to die. To me, they are nothing like the fresh water alligator gar.
I've ate gar before. Tough to clean. Most in the 2-5lb range. Two ways to clean. One is to use tin snips to cut down the backbone before using a knife to fillet the meat away from the skin in a rolling action, or my fav which is to take a heavy hatchet and cut steaks out using a knife to cut the meat away from the circle of skin,
They only eat live food and are pretty tasty. Just a PITA to clean.
 

wolfkpr

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A pair of pruning shears make opening them up easier. The meat is in a “ backstrap” looking strip, and actually very good, but there are other parts of them, like the eggs, that are toxic to humans..
 

retrieverman

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When I was a kid here in east TX, we catfished behind the dam at Lake Livingston which is the Trinity river, and we always saw some huge gar rolling. I doubt they were 300 lbs like that one though.
 

turkeyrun

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That is a lot of fish sticks! and guitar picks.


Those dinosaurs are tough. That would have required a chain saw to clean.

Split down the back. Filet the backstraps and it would still try to swim away.

Much tougher than a catfish.

Bet it was fun to catch.
 

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