On Tue, 6 Apr 2010 05:31:06 -0700 (PDT), Conan The Librarian
wrote:

On Apr 6, 6:59*am, wrote:
http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/news/...ors-marvel-mas...

Upclose head shot of a different gar:

http://www.mdwfp.com/ImageUploads%5C...%20web%202.JPG

And neither of these are record-class - they're certainly large, but as the guy
says in the article, there are larger ones swimming around. *Gives a whole
'nuther meaning to "rolling on the river...." *(for those that aren't familiar
with these, they "roll" on the surface). *

And no, AFAIK, you can't fly fish for these, unless you'd consider flinging a
chicken wired to grappling hook-sized treble with a stick of fencepipe "fly
fishing." *These things eat the things that eat the things for which one would
normally fly fish down here... *

Don't know if would work for alligator gar, but for their smaller
brethren: http://www.flyfishga.com/gar.htm

Interesting. I guess I should have figured that if folks will "fly fish" for
female marlin, they'll "flyfish" for anything that swims. And FWIW, alligator
gar start out small, too, so I guess you could "flyfish" as above for the small
ones. IME, to use the "rope fly" as in the link on the large gar, you'd likely
need a coupla-three feet or more of mooring hawser and a key ring to make the
fly, but ???. And a 6" piece of bite tippet (or any of the rest of the
mentioned gear) wouldn't suffice. IMO, this is bordering on not being
"flyfishing" anymore, but rather, using a fly rod and reel as a
quasi-baitcasting rig...hey, to each their own...

I've seen larger fish taken by gar and my grandfather had a story about seeing a
small pig swimming across a river getting taken by an alligator gar - it's been
years since I've heard it, so I don't remember all of the details, but I can say
that, IMO, casting a "fly" the size and weight of even a piglet would not be
"flyfishing" - again, that's why there's chocolate and vanilla.

TC,
R


Chuck Vance