Trash on the Fly

All the chatter on the net lately about gar on fly makes me wonder if I should post a bunch of old gar pics.  Or new gar pics… ironically it was gar that really got me motivated on trash fishin.  Early on, I went on a lot of wild goose chases and had a lot of disappointing moments with gar.  Oh to be sure there were a few fish landed here and there, but when I realized I could catch carp more or less “on demand” the fickle gar fell out of favor for quite a while. 

I suppose if I dedicated as much time to trying to learn gar as I did carp I might get them down a little better.  In the mean time, I guess I’ll just settle for the fleeting moments of 10-30 pound longnose gar in the spring, spring time flats full of laid up spotted gar, and the night time sight fishing for them in the summer.  In other words, fish them opportunistically instead of systematically.

I keep saying that I’m going to make this the year of the longnose but I’ve just been so busy and it’s so tempting to carp fish instead.  Recent forum posts and blog reports have brought back a flood of memories.  Here is a little thing I wrote up for an internet newsgroup back in 2003.  I had entirely forgotten about it until I was cleaning out my man room a few weeks ago and came across the Dallas Fly Fishers newsletter it was reprinted in:

Gar on the Fly

*   *   *

The call came early this morning.

“I’m not going to let That Water beat me… I’ll be back there just as soon as I can get the kids out the door.”

“Okay, ” I said, “I have a few things to do first.  I’ll be there later, just leave me a radio.”

*   *   *

Drink coffee.  Spend money on the phone/internet.  Pet dog.  Kiss girlfriend goodbye, et cetera.

*   *   *

Okay, yesterday a little flash worked: cone-head no-hackle crystal bugger.  But it didn’t work so well, and even drew a few refusals.  Also, it sank too fast. So today I will try something different– a poly-yarn clouser.  Green poly/black flash/white poly and small black bead chain eyes.  It’ll sink, but slowly.

I tie up a couple of the poly clousers in the baby bass colors.  The black flash makes a very nice lateral line, and I picked up a couple of bucket-boys out of That Water yesterday, so I know there is fry from time to time.

*   *   *

I set off my friend’s car alarm retrieving the radio, but I’m glad I got the radio anyway.

Before I’d been on the water 2 minutes he yelled into the mic:

“Woo-hoo! I’ve got a carp!”

It’s not a bad carp, either.  A little smaller than the one I pulled out yesterday but not so small, either; the rod is bent hard and the water is boiling.  Thanks to the radios I paddle up in time to snap a couple of pictures of

a) his largest fly-rod fish to date;
b) his largest fish to date;
c) his first carp, by any method.

Two casts later and he catches another carp, 50% larger and a very nice fish by any means.

Congrats, mental high fives, and I’m on the hunt.

*   *   *

Drifting slowly through the water, not paddling.  Quiet, invisible, fly in one hand, rod in the other.  Suspended just 20 feet from me are living, swimming spotted sticks.

GAR.

More false casts than I thought prudent later, the fly landed just beside the gar.  I was thinking about how badly I needed to clean my line (recent incident with wet clay– casting/shooting line is a complete joke at this point) when I twitched the fly and the gar came alive and turned, hit, shook, and was gone.

The hit and miss was with incomprehensible speed.  I didn’t realize what was happening until it was already long over.

*   *   *

I didn’t get another chance for almost an hour.  I finally found myself in a back cove shaped more like a feeder creek, and there were gar literally everywhere.  Gar on the left, gar on the right, cast to the middle gar, fight, fight, fight.

For a brief moment I thought I would land one that had around an inch of poly yarn firmly embedded in the mouth… then it yawned and swam off slightly irritated.

Finally, it happened.  The gar was no more than 15 feet away.  I cast, the fly dropped like a feather next to the beast’s eye.  It turned, hit, and I hit back, 3 times, fast, hard, with the rod, the line, and my upper body for good measure.

The water EXPLODED. Then the fish just laid there, motionless, looking at me, thinking:

“I am the top of the food chain in This Water.”

“Go away.”

Slight upward pressure with the rod to swing the fish toward the boat and it came STRAIGHT OUT OF THE WATER!  Then it hit the water and laid still again.

Hmm…

Upward pressure, the fish jumps again. Seems to be a pattern.

I debate about whether to touch the fish or just attempt to release it with the hemostats and a slow, steady hand.  Then I realize, hemostats in hand that the fish is *not hooked*.  Rather, the hook shank is laying perpendicular to the snout, upside down on the roof of the mouth, so that the hook bends outside of and on top of the snout, the hook point resting on top of the gar’s head/nose/paddle/handle/snout.

And then it decides it is done playing, twists, and the hook falls to the side. The fish disappears into the murky edges.

Half of the battle was trout/tarpon/sailfish/smallmouth bass, leap straight out of the water.  The other half was drum/am I hooked here?  What is going on?  Did that fish bite back?  Honey, where is the remote?

*   *   *

All in all, I ended up getting maybe 20 shots at gar today.  I had about 4 or five hookups but just the one fish landed.

Everything came together, I was living between the pages of a magazine:

saw the challenge
gained some experience
thought it through
tied some flies
found the fish
made the presentation
hosed the presentation
tried again
hosed it up again
(and again, and again)

and then just one beautiful moment when a fish probably best described as “you rat bastard” ate the fly, looked tough, lept, and hunkered down.  No, not hunkered down, exactly.  Just “hunkered.”

Oh, I could say he ran off 15 million feet of backing in the blink of an eye, or came to the top and did three of those triple-axle ice skating moves everyone was talking about after Nancy, Tonya and the Trailer Trash Gang Incident.  But in all reality the gar was good for a couple of jumps and then it was mostly dead weight.  A stick with kick, I guess.

*   *   *

I found my fishing partner into another carp.  They just kept getting bigger.  I sort of wanted to be jealous but couldn’t bring myself to it.  I did what I set out to do, which, in fishing, is kind of like jumping over the moon.  It doesn’t work out often.

I’ll go after more gar, but not for the fight.  I will chase the gar for the strike– which will most likely be referred to as “sight fishing for heart-attacks.”