Fly Fishing

taterflyflinger · Posted: Mon 06/21/10 5:36 pm Post subject: Sight Fishing Big Gar On The Fly

I went fishing today below Burgess Falls today near Cookeville. I had heard there were some smallies below the falls. I decided to give it a shot on my weekend off from work. I was walking the shoreline looking for a large rock that a small mouth would call home. When all of a sudden I saw an extremely large gar next a rock under an over hanging branch. I have caught gar before on a fly rod but I had never seen a gar that big before not even the reservoirs. I decided to give it a shot so I switched from my size brown crayfish looking wolly bugger to a white and red tarpon style fly on a 1/0 hook. I made a couple casts and I couldn't get the gar to move. Then finally I made a cast a little past the rock and the current swept under the rock and I started stripping the fly went past the gars mouth and is grabbed it. I stripped striked the as hard as I can before raising the rod to fight the fish. I couldn't move the fish just by using the rod tip to apply pressure. I remembered watching the film "Chasing Silver" with Andy Mills in that movie Andy demonstrates and stresses fighting the fish using the butt of the rod. I lowered the rod and applied pressure using the butt and the fish moved and then lunged out of the water. The fish looked even larger out of the water than it did in the water. After about a ten minute fight I was able to get the fish close enough to put a rope loop around its tail and land the giant gar. I preceded to take pictures and measured the gar at 57 inches in length and a girth of 20 inches. I plugged that in an online fish weight calculator when I got home and it estimated the long nose gars weight at about 34 pounds.

Tater

fliesandfins · Location: Internet

Thanks for sharing this. What a great adventure, story and fish. I have caught a couple gar down in the Florida Everglades - but nothing of this size by any stretch of the imagination. Additionally, this gar that you caught looks a bit different in terms of coloration (more silver'ish.) Good to know that adventure and exploration are still alive and well! Congrats!