I'm sorry I should have downsized the picture so you wouldn't haveta troll across the board to read the post,grrrr.
I do not killem,I turn them lose dat is if they don't break or cut my line first,the gar has its place in our waterways.They keep small crappie thinned out so we can catch BIGGER crappie that some of the lakes produce lol.One of these days Who knows gar may be the only fish that can live in our wasteing away waterways.
With the problems some are posting about braid I can live with but some are old problems that have been fixed.The eyes on the rod do not show no signs of wear what so ever however I do remmeber back years ago it did.I'm not a floater fisherman so cann't say whether it"ll slip though a float or not.Maybe a fix for what would be some type small tubing run though the float.All I know is the braid nowdays is not like what it was in cowboy days and think its even stronger.My fishing partner he too had bad taste for braid b/c of days ago problems.He still hasn't changed to braid but after our fishing trip friday I think I'll see braid on at least on of of rods if not two lol.He payed more attention to what was going on,I could out cast him,catch more hits,land more fish.

You ask if the water was clear,it was clear enough to see bream swimming along side your lure trying to steal the crappie nib several feet from the boat.You could even see crappie at times come up from nowhere and take the lure.After all this rain its got a good probably staining to muddy.To me its ideal for the type brush fishing I do(casting) and the small problems aren't really problems at all to me.