# Caught this in Cold Pass?



## dskogman (Oct 31, 2004)

I caught this in Cold Pass yesterday morning!
It was about 4 ft long and took about 30 minutes to land on a light spinning rod. I think it's an alligator gar but I didn't think they lived in salt water. As you can see the landing net was way too small and no gaff ( BIG TEETH )!


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## troy merrill (May 21, 2004)

*Yep. Gar.*

We have seen some really big ones in lower west bay this year. 4' and bigger.


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## poppincork (Jun 28, 2004)

There are some big Gar in the bay's. They can get up to 6' @150 pounds. I was always told they can eat close to their 1/2 weight daily... We use to catch them in the turning basin by the seafood processing plant outlet in Palacios every evening..Using stainless baited steel loops. Wait about a count of 10 and lasso those babies..There mouth is all teeth and bone..Once the loop tightens...their yours..They fight like the devil when you try to pull their head out of the water..Big time fighters.


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## Pope (Jun 20, 2004)

When I used to work crew boats we docked with shrimp boats. Every evening they would still be culling after they came to port and several 10ft alligator gar would be waiting for dinner. I would take 6/0 and use 80lb line to free line pogies to them. Never landed one cause of all the structure at dock. They wouldn't touch anything that didn't float so I couldn't use steel leaders. Those things would jump when hooked and scare the **** out of people. This was in Sabine Pass.

Pope
www.texasfishreport.com


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## dskogman (Oct 31, 2004)

This guy hit a live piggy and the hook went right through the lip or he would have bit through the leader in the first few seconds. Between this, 5 stingrays and a couple of black drum it was a pretty strange day.


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## Moonpie (Jun 20, 2004)

Yep, that is an alligator gar.

Some folks eat them. Have to clean them with a hatchet!


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## ComeFrom? (May 21, 2004)

*...And After You Clean 'em...*



Moonpie said:


> Yep, that is an alligator gar.
> 
> Some folks eat them. Have to clean them with a hatchet!


You have to go through the car wash (without the car) at least 6 times to get the smell off. They're nasty. CF? :spineyes:


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## jd10g (Jun 6, 2004)

we did the same in the diversion cannal in matty . . thing was atleast 6.5' long and i would say maybe 110lbs. if not more


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## Belt Sanders (Jun 30, 2004)

They are lot easier to catch than they are to let go of.
I just saw one about 4' in Burnett Bay that made a lazy swirl pass at my tout.
Probably 50 poundish.


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## Red3Fish (Jun 4, 2004)

*Big Gars*

In the 60's we used to wade the flat right in front of the lighthouse on Boliver. In the early spring, when you would get large influxed of fresh water into Trinity Bay, there would be hoards of big gar in the saltwater. We used to fish that area every week, and oftentimes, there would be 5 or 6 big dead gars on the beach there. Some had large gashes in them, probably made by ships props, but others would not have any visible signs of trauma. Some were 10' long! I would "watch" them on subsequent trips, and when they they had rotted away, and only bones left, pick up the jawbones. I had several jawbones at least 1' long!! I think after I left home, my mom cleaned out my room of jawbones, snakeskins, dried fish heads, deer hides, bobcat skins and my other miscellaneous collections! LOL

Later
R3F


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## fishnfetish (Jun 25, 2004)

*Gar*

Last year I put a gar over 5' in the boat, then promptly put it back out! I caught it in Churchill Bayou between Sy's/Ernie's Too and Cold Pass. Yes they are there. I also brought one over 5' long up to a private pier in LaPorte many years ago. They are hard to hook well because of their hard mouth and even harder too cook well so they are edible (chewable)!!!!!!


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## bslittle79 (May 24, 2004)

I ran over one this summer fishing a back lake in LA off of Sabine Lake. I thought I hit a log, I looked back and that gar had to be 4'-5' was jumping around like a tarpon before it settled down.


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## Sponge (Jun 22, 2004)

*Gars*

I was wade fishing one time right down the road from Cold Pass off of access road 6 and had about a 6 to 7 ft alligator gar come up right next to me "scared the **** out of me" he was very calm and just swam away...after thinking about it I've never heard of anyone getting attacked by a GAR so I continued fishing. A buddy of mine swore he saw one swim right by him in the same fishing spot a couple of years ago. I didn't believe him till it happened to me.


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## Jerry-rigged (May 21, 2004)

My dad fished for gar a lot when I was little. He caught one about 8', and one of my uncles caught one 10'. The are good eating, but the secret is to freeze them for about 6 months before you fry them LOL. If they are bigger than about 5', don't bother - too tough. A three footer is great eating - about like shark, but they are so tough to clean, we rarly kept anything smaller than about 4'. We cleaned them with a hatchet and a hammer.

Jerry


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## JimD (May 25, 2004)

*The question is*

The question is Why would you to try and land it? 3 or 4 ft of gar in your yak is too much for me. The last one I caught jumped over the yal and was not quite a 3 ft long nose gar. See Vincent's px of the 9 to 11 ft one he caught in his youth.

Unless it is your favorite one of a kind lure that you have to have; it is just like a big sting ray " cut the line and retie".


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## parrothead823 (Sep 29, 2004)

*It's Nessie!*

that is the Loch Ness Monster. You caught Nessie!

I saw one of those things roll in front of my yak while I was anchored at Cold Pass. I had one foot hanging over the side of the yak when this thing came up and rolled about 10' in front of the yak!

It moved so slowly I got a good estimate of its size at about 6' long. Im guessing 100lbs. Naturally I pulled my foot out of there!


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## Solid Action (May 21, 2004)

We used to catch them in the Nueces River and Choke Canyon Lake. The smaller ones are actually pretty good eating. You filet the meat off the back, kind of like a back strap off of a deer.


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## ShawnQ (May 21, 2004)

If I remember right, there have been studies done showing that gar don't eat nearly as much as people think they do. 

They generally prey on smaller baitfish like shad, minnows, or whatever the saltwater equivelant is...from what the study said. So, even if the DO eat a lot of food, it is a lot of the smaller stuff, so they aren't hurting the fishing. A lot of people shoot or catch and kill them because they think they ruin their hotspots. Pretty Lame...but I guess it's easy to assume a big gar will eat a lot of nice trout.

We got one over 6' long in California Hole in Rockport/Aransas Pass, MANY miles away from the nearest freshwater. Believe it or not, it actually won the heaviest stringer in a lone star tourney 

Shawn


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## Sean Hoffmann (May 24, 2004)

*That's right,*

Heck, dolphins eat a ton more trout than gar do. So does that mean...? Aw, nevermind.


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## satelliteguy (Sep 14, 2004)

This summer we saw a gar in the surf. It was huge. Easy 10' and probably closer to 15'. It seemed as big as my 17' boat. We were fishing about 200 yds off Quintanna beach and 20 yds from the jetties. It came right up to the boat and lurked around a while. It had the nose of a gar, but it was so huge and in the saltwater, so we weren't exactly sure.


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## Mustad7731 (May 23, 2004)

Back in the late '60s early '70s some of my buds and I use to fish for gar around
Lynchburg, Baytown area. We caught lots of them using single strand wire (174 lb)
and 5/0 to 7/0 trebles using LARGE cut mullet for bait. Our largest were just under 
6' 6" and 150 lbs... Back then we could not always find a ride to the Gulf to fish for 
"Big Game" and they did a good job of allowing us to "refine our technique" for later
'Big uns'. I'd like to find a place around where I could break my son in on these dudes.


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