PA gar??

[TroutBuster]

The other night I managed to catch three gar in the allegheny river. No mistaking they were gar, I'm just not sure what subspecies. Couldn't find anything in the fishing digest regarding gar, limits or anything like that. Only thing listed in there is for spotted gar in lake erie.

Are they just so rare that the fish commission doesn't recognize them?

 

[Ramcatt]

no

 

[Heritage-Angler]

TB - Spotted Gar are an endangered species. Longnose Gar are a candidate species.

Per the PFBC:

Candidate species are those that may not be on the "sick list" yet, but have suspicious "symptoms" that require watchfulness and caution. There are bag and possession limits that restrict or prohibit their taking. For example, the timber rattlesnake is a candidate species that has about a month-and-a-half-long season and the annual possession limit is one (except for regulated hunts, which require special permits). The Commission urges anyone who catches a candidate species to release it "immediately and unharmed to the waters or other area from which it was taken."



Link to more PFBC info on gar...

 

[JackM]

Ones we used to catch on the Mon were known as Alligator Gar. Is that a subspecies?

 

[Heritage-Angler]

Jack - They were probably longnose gar. Here's a link that shows the alligator gar's range.

Guess it's a bad idea to "thumb" one of those bad boys.

 

[tomgamber]

I think it was Bruno was catching them on pieces of nylon rope...am I remembering that correctly?

 

[mystillwater]

got pics?

 

[Bruno]

Yep I have caught a ton of them on Rope Flies - just unbraid a piece of clothes line. I found the hook to be pretty much useless as the mouth is all bone. The rope gets tangled in the teeth. I am surprised that they are endangered.

Here is a pic of the type of fly I use.

 

[pcray1231]

I learned what Bruno is saying the hard way as a teenager. In the Allegheny, I always fished one area below a dam, right at the water release from the power plant. For several weeks in a row, a big school of gar would come up and get in the current break behind the fishing platform there. They'd take minnows easily, but as Bruno said, hooks were useless, nomatter what I did I couldn't get one through their mouths. An old timer showed me the trick. Socks were the trick. He tore up a pair of old cotton socks into strips, and just put em on a hook. It worked, the gar would get their teeth tangled in the socks and you could keep em hooked, sometimes. Thats when I discovered gar fishing problem #2. Need steel leaders.

I've been told rope indeed works better and I believe it, just haven't been back lately.

I know the Allegheny has plenty of Longnose gar, I do not know if that is the only type of gar present.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Well that explains that.

One year a very long time ago I was fishing the St. Lawrence River on the NY side. My family was staying at a camp and we had a cove in the back of our camp. I was catching bass when I saw a gar that was easily 70 lbs come into the cove. I rolled that fish 3 times with a rapala double jointed minnow. No matter what I never hooked that fish and wondered how the 2 treble hooks never got any flesh. Now I know.

 

[JackM]

Long-nose gar it is for my prior experience. The snout was not wide like the alligator gar, and, of course, the range issue.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

It's a pantyhose fly down south.lol
Strips of pannyhoes,white,tied to a long shank hook.

 

[Chaz]

Probably longnosed gar, here's the description from PFBC.
http://www.fishandboat.com/pafish/fishhtms/chap7.htm