I caught a nice slot red fishing a dock near deep water.
I used gulp shrimp red and white.
Question:
I was exploring upper portion fosters creek on the wando and saw lots of long nose gar rolling on the surface.
Does their presence mean the water is very low in salinity or oxygen and therefore not a good place to find redfish?
I have seen them also way up Horlbeck also. I haven’t been successful catching anything while seeing them.
those are good questions I hope someone can give you and me an answer to that!
“Fish On”
I dont think so i have caught plenty of reds and trout with gar all around
1648 lowe wita 25 tohatsu
Saw them in big numbers in the Ashley this time last year rolling around like that. I don’t know if they’re spawning or what. I’ve caught gar, usually fishing with menhadden, along side redfish plenty of times. Gar are fairly common in most of our salt rivers here. I’ve never noticed the presence of gar causing the bite to shut off, but one of the captains here who fish live bait every day could probably give better insight.
Gar are everywhere it seems. They often seem to hang out near good trout habitat too. Every now and then they will take a soft plastic on jig. My son caught a monster that tailwalked like a marlin once it felt the hook. Thankfully it broke off 
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
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Good ■■■■■■■■ thank you
throw a old red clauser minnow at them and hold on. when the bite slows down for the target species try and fool around with them. they can be a blast.
“There is a strange sense of pleasure being beat to hell by a storm when you’re on a boat that is not going to sink.” JB
The gar are fun to catch, especially the large ones. Take a piece of good size braided nylon rope about 6" and unbraid about 5" and brush it out. Melt the braided end. Loop a piece of braided steel cable around the melted end. Put a few beads on the cable, followed by a large spinner. The cable should serve as about a 12" to 14" leader. My favorite rig was typical redfish rig. 7’ rod w/Ambassador 5500 and 10# mono. I caught the larger species up to 8’ long in brackish water in S Texas and in inland freshwater lakes. You can troll, but casting to them is a blast. The big gar tail-walk and jump like bill fish and the ratio with 10# mono is great sport. Oh, yeah, the big gar are predators, not scavengers. The meat is flaky white and good to eat. The first time I fished for them, I went alone. I did not want my buddies to see me fishing without a hook or bait. After much success, it was fun to take folks fishing with no bait or hooks…olddog
olddog
Do you have a picture of that rig? I’d like to giveiy a shot!
Smokey what leader # are you throwing that clouser minnow with?
Don’t eat the gar roe, though. It’s poisonous!!!
I have been doing some reading and apparently they are a great tasting fish…who knew? American Indians ate them a lot. Looks like I’ll try some gar fishing.
I lived in the Dallas area from 1983 until 1999 and fished the inland lakes and hung out at Port Aransas for SW fishing. I do not think that I have any photos of the rig, but it is not critical. If your can make a piece of braided rope look like big bucktail, it will work. The gar slashes with its bill. The teeth are along the outer edges of the bill. When they slash, the bill becomes entangled. The harder they pull, the tighter they are caught. Oh yeah, if you are going to release them, use a sharp knife to cut the entangled fiber. DO NOT think that you can pull the fiber off or break the bill.
I learned about eating these ugly beasts from the guys who work the oil and gas rigs in the bayous of LA and East TX. They typically turned the back muscles into fish balls and fried them. We tried a number of methods…all good. The fish is a pain to clean…olddog
olddog
A guy from work says they’re delicious as well…I cant eat fish cause of allergies but if I could i would def try every one possibly available at least once!
“Fish On”
You have to get out the tin snips to clean them… sounds like work to me.
There are a lot of 'em in pockets around the harbor when it gets hotter out. Would be fun to catch one on the fly
use marshmallows on the gar. No joke.
As a kid in Florida my brother and I would try to catch them in the canals but they would not take any of our baits. One day my brother had a bag of marshmallows and for sheits and giggles I put one on a hook and threw it out there. bang, hooked up every time. Could not believe it.
They love them.
the rig doesnt have to be fancy just drag it across the snout and they should snap at it. i made mine about 4" each and zip tie a piece of rope to a barrel swivel and shake it a bunch to unravel it. dragging it across the snout can work but casting blindly will get hits too if theyre around. to “set” the hook dont pull the rod like normal, just lift it up and keep the line tight as they will thrash and just latch on harder. to take them off i always pried the jaws open by hand then put a small stick in the back of the mouth to keep em open so i can pull off the rope. that way of unhooking them def isnt for the faint of heart but done properly ive been torn up worse by blue crab that i ever have a big gar. as for eating them ive tried them once or twice and they arent too bad. i made poor mans lobster and fried, each of which were fine but def not like flounder, walleye, grouper, … you will need the buck knife or tin snips to crack the back skin then filet like you would taking backstraps off a deer. heres a pic of 1 of my rigs…nothing fancy but it works. sure ive been called nuts here and at home for gar fishing, but when a guy at home that got to the river before me caught a small catfish and 10" smallmouth and my dad and i caught 10-15 3 foot gar a piece in short order…which group of fishermen had more fun? 
Looks like easy (poor man’s) Tarpon Fishing to me. I’m going to try that rig on a fly rod.