Thread: Trash fish control

Mainly lurk here for the good info......but this post caught my attention!

Corker if you want to catch a big gar wait till they start breaking the surface...they will come up for air and will also feed. At that point put a small bream on a 36" steel leader with a bobber about 6' foot up from the bream and wait for the bobber to move. As said earlier let them take it...when you think that the gar doesn't have the bait anymore wait a couple more minutes, then set the hook and hold on! This method has worked for me when catching them...some of the biggest gar (40" plus) I have caught has come from the James river...from Browns island downtown to Maidens upriver. I have seen them down at Diascund but only caught smaller ones
(20'' or so). If you want to have some fun use the rope method on a 6 or 7 weight fly rod...definetly fun. One more tip is to carry a piece of broomstick about 18" or so...when you catch one stick it down thier snout....they will bite down on it and you can hold them by the end of the broomstick so you can take your hook or lure out without loosing a finger!!!

Any more questions just PM me!

i bowfish for them in the summer in the rivers. man o man that is sum fun thier. and take them to a friend and he cooks them up. and they are really good.

Originally Posted by speck commander

I have seen them down at Diascund but only caught smaller ones (20'' or so).

I've caught several 24 to 36-inchers out of there, but this one Doodlum caught in March is the biggest one I've landed (just short of 48".) We caught 4 that day and could have loaded the boat if we'd had the time & interest.

That's a nice citation gar! Let me know if you want to decimate the gar population down there.

Believe it or not, I actually have a small tackle box full of gar fishing rope lures, garlic scents, dyes, treble hooks, etc.:D My best luck has been on the rope lures which I spray painted about an inch of the 'head' of the lure bright red. Gar fishing with light/med. action gear is fun when nothing else is biting and youre see'n plenty of gar. I pretty much stopped bow fishing for 'em once I found out how much fight a gar has on the end of a fishing rod. I dont kill 'em anymore since I found out what they are good for........CATCHING!!:p

Gar, pickerel, bass, and catfish (at least a couple of species but not all four) are needed to control the population of the panfish. Otherwise, all we would catch is 100s of 8"ers.

It is up to the VDGIF to determine the correct bio-mass and control that bio-mass through stocking to keep a lake in good balance.

Originally Posted by PanMan_VA

Otherwise, all we would catch is 100s of 8'ers.

Heck yeah, I haven't caught an 8 footer yet!

I would probably not throw them up on the bank. It might be a waste of some pretty good meat. Take a look at this link. It seems fairly easy to prepare them for eating. I have never caught a gar but if I did I wouldn't be afraid to try it. I love catfish and gar couldn't have any worse eating habits than they do.
Gar Recipes