Gar and Redhorse

Two friends of mine wanted to catch their Gar badly. The last two weeks had been really good for Gar fishing, but now that the fish were moving out, there were only a handful of them left in our area.

Still, we picked at fish. There were two guys also fishing for Gar and they had arrived before us. They reported no Gar caught. While we watched them fish across the river, they had one bite but the Gar came off.

When you know how to catch them, it's not hard at all. The guy across the river was sporting a centerpin reel and all dressed for the occasion, but he doesn't know the first thing about Gar feeding behaviour. Meanwhile, we were getting constant bites for an hour until the Gar smarten up. In the end, we managed to bring one each to the net for both Tristan and Stefano.





When we hooked the rest of the Gar and they seemed to avoid our baits, we switched to Redhorse.

I sight fished a nice Silver Redhorse that was actively feeding. I had polarized sunglasses and I could see the fish and their behaviour clearly. Tristan and Stefano both had trouble seeing the fish, so I spotted the Redhorse for them, guide them to bait placement, and even told them when to set the hook when I could see the fish slurp the nightcrawler.

Tristan's Silver Redhorse



Tristan's Shorthead Redhorse



Stefano's Shorthead Redhorse



Stefano's Greater Redhorse



We could have done even better, but Stefano needed to be home at a certain time and we had a long drive back...so we were off the water by 3:30pm and left the fish biting.

I only caught one Silver Redhorse (and too many Rockbass...as did everyone), but guiding them to these fish felt just as good as catching them myself!

Gar! I hope to catch one in the city one of these days

PUMP KNOWS said:

Gar! I hope to catch one in the city one of these days

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There are not many in the city (well, relatively not many), so your challenge would be to find them.

Although they will hit lures, the chance of setting the hook into one will be slim. You remember we had a hard enough time hooking them with cut bait and trebles...when the fish actually will hold onto the bait and swallow it. With lures, the teeth will just bounce off the plastic or metal and it will be hard to get any hooks in them.

Perhaps soft plastics are better. On the fly may give you a better chance than lures since the fly material will just floss through the teeth and less likely to interfere with the hookset. I've caught them on the fly before. A #10 or #8 stinger is important. Most of the fish I hooked were on the stinger.

they actually have a fly material that is designed to tangle in the gar's teeth so you don't actually end up catching it using a hook.

http://www.orvis.com/news/fly-fishing/repost-of-longnose-gar-on-the-fly/

NADO said:

they actually have a fly material that is designed to tangle in the gar's teeth so you don't actually end up catching it using a hook.

http://www.orvis.com/news/fly-fishing/repost-of-longnose-gar-on-the-fly/

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I've made my own gar flies before. Even with the gar fly, "hook up" isn't guaranteed. You need the gar to chew on the fly for a while to get the fibers entangled.

But on the other hand, the gar can be tangled too well, and it takes scissors and a lot of time to cut away all the material. Once you cut off all the fibers, your fly is useless.

Years ago, I met a local guide, Glenn Hales, and fished with him for a morning. He was scouting out the location to take a client the next day, but was gracious to teach me the ropes while he was scouting. He basically said with the right technique, you can catch them with regular flies and a treble stinger hook. He dislike the rope lures as well for the same reason that a Gar can get badly entangled in the fiber (and it takes too much handling and too long to cut everything away). With his teachings, I went on to hook and land 6 Gar that one day many years ago.

Personally, I like the challenge of hooking them the traditional way. It makes the task harder. At best, I get solid hook up only 30% of the time. But when you hit a really good day, I've experienced a take every few drifts. Last year, that was a day we had a take every drift for 4 hours straight. It was non-stop for 3 of us and we must have landed over 50 Gar between the 3 of us.

When I guide my friends to their first Gar, live bait or cut bait is the best choice. You can get them on flies, but bait simply provides consistent and steady action.

Very nice. Which cut baits did you use and what size trebles are ideal? those redhorse look healthy.

DILLIGAF?! said:

Very nice. Which cut baits did you use and what size trebles are ideal? those redhorse look healthy.

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Just any fresh cut minnow will do. I like to use smaller trebles in #8. I find larger trebles give the fish a tough time getting the hook into the mouth. They like to hold onto the bait for a long while before slowly working the bait back into the mouth. I've experiment with single hooks for larger fish and it works for larger fish. Smaller fish I have better hook up ratio with the small trebles.

Redhorse are very healthy there. They do have some scrapes on the sides and split fins due to spawning activity, but otherwise the fish are fat and clean.

Awesome fish and great report. When is the best time to target gar?

ChromeAddict said:

Awesome fish and great report. When is the best time to target gar?

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Longnose Gar is a warm water species. In fact, the hotter it gets, the better the action. Every year, when the weather warms up to a few consistent days of 20C air temp, with ample sun, that usually signals the start of Gar fishing. It lasts all summer until days get shorter and water temp drops in the fall. Dog days of summer is usually the best though. They can be found on weedy flats and quite active.

I've also caught other Gar on the fly. Aside from Longnose Gar, I've hooked Spotted Gar and Shortnose Gar. Here's a Shortnose Gar from Illinois with streamer and stinger that I tie myself.



So far, I've caught 5 species of Gar...just missing the Cuban Gar and the Tropical Gar to cross off all the Gar species. For most part, Gar fishing is basically the same for all these Gar species. The only thing you need to do is scale up or scale down base on the expected size of the gar. For the Alligator Gar, we were using steaks from 4lb carp. For the Florida Gar, we were using 1" chunks of cut Bluegill Sunfish.

Alligator Gar - Texas



Spotted Gar - Illinois



Longnose Gar - Ontario



Shortnose Gar - Illinois



Florida Gar - Florida

This is a species (long nose) I'd like to cross off the list this year.

Thanks for the report and the extra info!

Very beautiful fish. Practice catch and release, some of these species are currently threatened according to the Ontario ministry of natural resources.

TheLordoftheBass said:

Very beautiful fish. Practice catch and release, some of these species are currently threatened according to the Ontario ministry of natural resources.

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If you follow his work, I don't think you need to tell him that...