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Fishing for Alligator Gar
The alligator gar is the largest species of gar and is the largest exclusively freshwater fish in North America. It can be as long as eight to twelve feet and often weighs at least 100 pounds at maturity. The current world record alligator gar weighed 279 pounds and was caught in the Rio Grande River in 1951. Even larger alligator gars — over 300 pounds — have been caught by trotliners.
The alligator gar is an aggressive, solitary fish that lives in fresh water bodies in the southeastern U.S. It is carnivorous and feeds by lurking amongst reeds and other underwater plant life, waiting for food to pass by. It has even been witnessed attacking a five foot alligator before devouring it.
Though subsisting mostly on fish, the alligator gar will also eat waterfowl. There are no documented cases of alligator gars attacking humans in North America.
Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana allow regulated sport fishing of the alligator gar.
The fish is popular amongst bowfishers because of its size and tendency to fight. An interesting anatomical feature of this fish is that its buoyancy bladder is directly connected to its throat, giving it the ability to draw in air from above the water. For this reason, alligator gar are often found near the surface of a body of water, much to the delight of bowfishers.
The Alligator Gar goes by other names such as gator gar.
