Gar on the Fly!

[gerald]

I have taken far more gar on a fly than anything else---I seldom use a fly larger than a 6 and usually they are barbless.Every gar I can recall catching had the hook in the corner of their mouth.They will jump clear of the water and if they seem to tire and come to you all you need to do is tap them on the head with the tip and the fight begins anew.The river above Harding is
a gar paradise.I bet it was a ball with a 5 wgt.

[Drifter]

gerald,

I've tried using a conventional fly pattern but couldn't get the hook to penetrate the bony mouth. I could hook one every now and then, but not consistently. With Hooker's version of the gar fly (no hook needed) my catch vs. hookup rate has increased to about 50%.

Drifter

[Drifter]

Don't know if you all remember the thread last year with regard to gar but....

Hooker showed an example of his "gar fly" at last year's Spring Fling. Well I tied a few up and threw them in my vest. Lo and behold, Lil Drifter and myself got into a school of gar today. I tied on the fly and in about an hour, we had eight "hookups" ....and boated four of these ugly creatures. The biggest was about 28 inches long. We saw a bigger one but couldn't convince him to bite. These fish are a blast on a 5 wt fly rod!

Also caught some shoal bass and bream, but the spotted gar were the highlight of the day. No gar balls for me....all fish were promptly released.

Drifter

[Hooker]

Drifter,
YOU ARE the "GAR KING" this year! I haven't even tried to catch a gar yet. However, the time is coming as the water gets warmer, that they start laying up on top in the middle of the day. That is when they are most suseptible to the gar fly. Let them "chew" on the fly a little bit and get it real tangled before you start playing them.

[Drifter]

I found out that the "garfly" is truly a "fly". Lil Drifter tried throwing it with his Ambassador but couldn't do it. He finally switched to the ultra light spinning reel. He lost a couple of big ones because he was trying to "set" the hook so to speak.

I had no problems throwing the fly with the 5 wt. The difficult part was getting the darn things off. I used needle-nosed pliers to hold the fly and cut the nylon with a filet knife. The fish were none the worse for wear. They swam away as if nothing had happened.

I believe they were feasting on the silversides. The gar would break the surface, sending the tiny minnows scattering. The gar would follow the garfly right up to the boat, and even chase it into deep water if we let the fly sink. I'm gonna spray the fly with some fish scent next time I go. They seem to "mouth" the fly a lot.

I may have to give them another shot next week. I also heard another variation of the garfly uses strips of nylon pantyhose. I might give that a shot also.

Drifter

[Gray ghost]

Now that sounds like some serious fun hooking into those Gar's with a fly rod. I would loved to go after some of those guy's .If this is not a secret Gar honey hole I would love to find a mess of them to play with . They want attack your float tube will they?

[Hooker]

That's how I get them off to. If you grab them behind the eyes, and turn them over, they will quite down while you cut the rope off.

Ghost,
I'd be careful trying to land one in a float tube. They get pretty wild sometimes and I'm sure a large one could bite through a float tube without much trouble.