Fishing for Alligator Gar 101

Learning to Fish for Alligator Gar is Akin to Learning to Hunt for Dinosaurs

I discovered the mystery that is Alligator Gar almost as soon as I discovered my obsession with fishing. As a kid, I was fascinated with dinosaurs. As an adult, these magnificent creatures have all but become my living dinosaurs.  This year AJ and I were lucky enough to draw tags for the Trinity River Gars. I am making it my mission, of sorts, to catch a living monster this year. This series of blogs will be documenting my mission to catch a large Alligator Gar. It will be explaining the experiments I take to find what works. It will be giving you a glimpse in to the misadventures I drag AJ through on my quest to capture a living dinosaur. But, most importantly, it will be showing you what I learn during our adventures.

I started with lots & lots of Research

My go-to sources for information any time I want to learn something about fishing are:

1. (TPWD) Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
2. YouTube
3. Google Searches

With all the information out there, I decided to break down my studies into 3 basic categories:

1. Species Specific Characteristics;
2. Laws, Regulations, and Tactics for fishing the Alligator Gar;
3. Gear, Tools, and Bait that have worked for others in search of these living dinosaurs.

From there, I figured I could add to my knowledge as I progressed.

So, What did I Learn?

I read and reread and reread again the regulations and recommendations on the TPWD site to make sure I knew exactly where I would be allowed to fish, how I’d be allowed to fish, and when I’d be allowed to be there. I’ve heard from so many people about how hard it is to catch a monster gar and how demanding the fishing process is, especially, when it comes to patience with these living dinosaurs that I seriously doubted my ability to accomplish this one. I focused in on three of the main points TPWD emphasized: 

1. Even professional guides experience a high rate of dropped bait and failed hook sets [aka…I have to be patient]; 
2. The most common method for pole and line fishing of gar is “cut common carp placed on a 5/0 or bigger circle hook, treble hook or J-hook with a gap wide enough to encircle the lower jaw. The hook is often fastened by strong braided line to a steel leader, with or without a weight, and fished suspended or on the bottom of a river or lake.” TPWD. [translation…I need to find as many different setups as I can and just choose something to start with]; and 
3. there is still massive debate as to the best method for catching these dinosaurs, so much so in fact, that TPWD has little recommendation as to the best method to use [in other words, I need to study methods used, choose a solution that might work for me, and not be afraid to change things up if my first choice isn’t working].

As I side note, I also want to emphasize that we are doing this adventure without a hired guide for 2 significant reasons: 1) we are limiting our budget for a variety of reasons & 2) we want to prove to ourselves and our readers that a woman is as capable of accomplishing the difficult outdoors quests that often holds back so many adventurers.

From there, I focused on YouTube

Several guides have their own channels where they show the fish they and their customers have caught. A few even show you how they catch their alligator gars. What is truly a closely guarded secret though is the rigging. Based on what we saw, AJ and I decided we would start with a few definitives:

1. We would use 3 different length poles, each rated for catfish and/or ocean strength fish. I opted for a Shakespeare BigWater, a KingKat, and a Off Shore Angler Frigate.
2. We would use 100lb ocean grade braid
3. We would use 3-4 foot wire leaders with a few different riggings.
   1. #8 – 93lb wire with a 4/0 Octopus hook
   2. #9 – 108lb wire with a 5/0 Octopus hook
   3. #10 – 131lb wire with a 3/0 Treble hook
   4. #12 – 180lb wire with a 5/0 Treble hook

Then we started collecting our gear.

Most of the gear that we decided to start with, we already owned. I’m a rather avid catfish angler and AJ is starting to develop my fondness for the creatures, so we have a decent collection of supplies between the two of us. We decided to use our more heavy-duty catfishing poles and the weights, beads, and swivels we already had for our catfishing adventures. All we really had to get was the heavy duty line, wire leader line, sleeves for the leader lines, and some larger hooks. Unfortunately, we were a tad bit at the mercy of the sports store for our shopping list. We modified as we shopped based on what supplies were in stock (some of the options weren’t exactly what we were hoping to get, but we were confident we could make the selections work). 

Our biggest challenge, preparing for the adventure, was setting up the leader lines. It took a few hours of studying videos, and experimenting with setups to decide on exactly what we would try first…My introduction to being patient on this project!

For an in depth explanation of the leader lines, check out our YouTube video documenting the step by step process for building our Alligator Gar Leader Lines.

There was also the Location Delima

While studying techniques and rigging setups and fishing methods and various other philosophies people have developed over the years, we took breaks to study maps, search for hints as to catch locations, and scour the internet for where we should drop our lines. AJ found an article from TPWD showing general locations and catch rates that gave us a focal point for our mapping. TPWD. 

When time allowed and weather cooperated (especially with sporadic lock-downs and county movement restrictions) we went to the various locations we found on Google Maps and looked for ourselves to see if our assessment of the satellite images and other peoples’ posted maps were what we were wanting. What were we looking for?

• Areas of fast moving water with bends that created pockets of still water
• Collections of surface bubbles to indicate higher oxygenation pockets
• Deep cavities where the larger fish would be able to submerge and remain undetected
• Bait fish, especially carp, that could be easily ambushed from these cavities and slow eddys
• Structure that could camouflage the presence of fish

Finally, we have decided that we are ready to try our hand at alligator gar fishing.

Check back with us soon. We’ll be giving an account of our first gar fishing outing soon. If the odds are in our favor, we’ll have an alligator gar to show you!

A Few Fun Facts for those who don’t know much about these great dinosaurs:

• Alligator Gar can live a normal life of 50 years. FWS.
• It takes an Alligator Gar more than 2 years to reach 3 feet and requires just as much time to grow another foot. TPWD
• The largest alligator gar ever caught in the United States was just over 8 feet long, almost 50 inches around and weighed 327 pounds. —Field & Stream
• An average alligator gar has a travel range of less than 40 miles, so they stay fairly close to “home” typically. TPWD
• The Texas Alligator Gar record is a 1953 catch weighing 302 pounds and measuring 7 and ½ feet long. TPWD

If you’re interested in learning to fish, check out our other stories about learning to fish.