any one shoot gar

[t-rocks69]

has any one tried to spear fish any gar in texas rivers and lakes or any other type of fresh water fish and is it legal??

 

[SeaHunt]

Nope. But I do hear there is a big old bunch of those nasty Gar fish in the Trinity River. The river section just south of the City of Dallas Sewerage Treatment Plant is highly touted in many of the "Spear Fishing Texas Rivers" dive mags.

I’ve actually heard the biggest Gar fish can be located here...

Keep us updated on your experiences.

 

[archman]

Gar are not prized for eating. A lot of bone and thick skin, and the meat's not too great. It IS legal to fish for them, I don't know about spearfishing. That's gonna be a hard target to nail... your spear may also bounce off or get deflected off the cylindrical body.

I wouldn't try it with an alligator gar. Heck, I wouldn't want to even BE in the water with one of those things.

 

[Firefyter]

I'm not sure about spearfishing, but a lot of people around here bowfish for them. The only way I've ever seen them eaten was to boil the meat off the bones, and archman's right....not worth eating.

 

[sealskin98]

You can spearfish only for nongame fish (gar are legal) in freshwater here. Unfortunately, Texas regulations classify catfish as a game fish.

In Oklahoma, blue and channel catfish are classified as nongame fish, and their regulations allow them to be taken with speargun along with other nongame fish.

Arkansas regulations allow spearfishing for regular game fish along with nongame fish in some lakes.

Of the three, looks like Arkansas is the most spearfishing friendly.

 

[CharleyT]

You can spearfish only for nongame fish (gar are legal) in freshwater here. Unfortunately, Texas regulations classify catfish as a game fish.

Not all catfish Mike. Bullheads (both Yellow Ameiurus natalis and Black Ameiurus melas) are both classified as Non--game fish on the TPW Catfish Page.

In addition, based on some reading (I love getting paid to do this haha), the TPW shows the following are also non-game fish:

Bluegill Lepomis macrochirus
All sunfish
Warmouth Lepomis gulosus
Freshwater Drum Aplodinotus grunniens
Common Carp Cyprinus carpio
Grass Carp Ctenopharyngodon idella
All Shiners (Good luck! chuckle)
All Shad (Another challange)
Chain Pickerel Esox niger
All Gar
All Suckers (Buffalo)
American Eel Anguilla rostrata
Bowfin Amia calva
Rio Grande Cichlid Cichlasoma cyanoguttatum

More fish than I thought we'd be able to go after. Now to find a place in Texas where the vis is good enough to spend money on a speargun.

 

[Skyjunky]

Ha good luck with that.

 

[redacted]

I've heard that you can fillet an alligator gar and make some good fish balls. Problem may be that the filleting is most easilly done with a small chain saw!

 

[Cudabait]

All the Alligator Gar I've speared were in Lake Bistineau,(TX, LA ARK border) in LA>\.The water color has a tea color to it and it has been some years since I dived the lake. However they used to hold an Alligator Gar Rodeo there during the month of December.

For some reason, during the very cold months the gar seem to hibernate, clumped together like cordwood. We speared some that were huge. Can't seem to find many people wh have recent info on the lake. I don't eat 'em.

Regards,

 

[Squashie]

has any one tried to spear fish any gar in texas rivers and lakes or any other type of fresh water fish and is it legal??

Here is an excerpt from the Aug 22 Ft. Worth Star Telegram and a link to the entire article on a gentleman who "bow fishes" for really large gar in the Trinity River... :11:

One day last month, Tommy Frank found himself just where he likes to be -- about to do battle with a seven-foot alligator gar weighing more than 200 pounds, which he held, literally, on the end of a string. The scene was a familiar one for the Arlington resident, a dedicated bow fisherman who stalks monster alligator gar with as much stealth and fortitude as most hunters use for less dangerous trophies such as white-tailed deer and elk.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/

According to the article, he has bagged over 100 in the 6 foot plus range.