Here is an odd question.Does anyone know if there is any kind of record for Gar fish?Reason I ask is Saturday on pool 5,I caught one that was just under 36″ long.I have never seen one this big before.It was pretty neat,my mom had one on the same time I did just 30 yards away.Hers was about 28″.We somehow stumbled into a spot where they must have been spawning as they were surfacing all around us.
I have the Mn fishing reg book at my desk. The record for Longnose Gar is 16 – 12 from the St Croix/Washington Co. The Shortnose Gar is 4 – 10 from the Mississippi/Hennepin Co. I have caught some small ones on the Croix myself and they did not have much girth but decent length. Yours were fairly large fish. Any estimate as to a weight for the long one?
Dino
A friend of mine, Doug Fullerton, holds the Minnesota State Record Gar. I have seen pictures of the thing. It was over 6 feet long!
Caught about 20 years ago just north of the Stillwater bridge.
J.
Running into a swarm of spawning gar is pretty neat. I’ve seen this many times in the spring, about this time of year, right where the Chippewa R. meets the Mississippi River. I’ve never caught one clean but I’ve foul hooked a few. Most quite small. I can’t even image what a 72+ inch gar would look like! Holy Smokes!
Looked like a snake! About as big around the middle as a fire hose with that long toothy nose.
I have lost touch with Doug over the years. I remember that Blue Ribbon Bait had a poloroid of that fish on the wall for years. I’ll ask if if it still exists. If it does, I’ll try to borrow it for a scan and send it in.
J.
Please do!
Back in the late 70’s we caught what seemed like tons of them above Genoa. My flyrod was 7′ and we had some that were near the legnth of the rod. Maybe 55-65″ long. Looking at them as trash fish, we thought to weigh them of photogragh them…kind of like a carp with teeth.
Did you know there is a short nose and a long nose gar? The short nose record is around 4lbs. So I know you have to be talking about the long nose gar. Still I don’t know what the record is.
The Minn state record is:
Short Nose Gar 4-10, Mississippi River, Hennepin County.
J.
I think gar are pretty cool myself, I don’t see what makes them a “trash fish” when everyone says they are fun to catch. I’m going to go gar fishing this year, I caught one on a homemade gar lure last year but I lost it before I brought it in.
Back in Texas growing up, I remember using a piece of nylon cord on the end of my line that was about six inches long that had the end tied into many loops and knots. The looks weere cut and the ends frayed so that the nylon fibers were all un rolled and exposed. The fibre ball at the end of the line looked like like cotton does when it is picked. We would pull this behind a bobber about three feet, with no weight… at the surface. When a Gar hits it, his teeth get tangled in the nylon and this works just lioke Velcro… with no hooks. Gar hit surface baits…. I remember Dad catching many this way, but was I very young. You might give this a try.
Hawger
There is a great gar fishing website- Gar Anglers Sporting Society- that’s right “GASS.” You can pass GASS along to others if you are so inclined… 
Anyway, lots of cool stuff including techniques and the hookless lures like Hawger was talking about. Check it out!
hey, i’ve been there, cool site.
Down in Florida we used to fish in the Everglades a lot. Between watching for gators and avoiding humongous mosquitoes, I loved to watch gar swim around when they swarmed. They were a riot to watch and catching them was a challenge sometimes. I tried and tried for a couple of weeks until I realized that they weren’t like “normal” fish. One way to catch them is to toss out a treble hook and snag them, but the funnest way was to practice a little patience.
We’d get a bit of worm on a hook, put on a bobber about 1 foot up the line and toss it into a school of gar. And wait. Pretty soon, one of them would start eating the worm. Since their snouts are really long and they have to work the bait back into their gullet, you usually have to watch the bobber swim around for what seems like 1/2 hour. Eventually, the hook would be far enough down their snout that we could set it. Great fighters, though. And I spent most of my time watching the bobber and laughing. Fishing in Florida is a lot different, I think. lol
Gar are just so prehistoric looking that it is fun to watch them. Once on the St. Croix we watched a two and half footer swim and investigate our bait basket. He just swam back and forth until we started to try and catch him and then he just swam away. They are a real interesting fish. I wonder if there has been any tracking studies to try and figure out their habits? Cyclone
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