This is what John wrote about his gar on our Illinois Bowfishers forum.
First, the stats. This fish is 7' 4" long and (estimated) to be 185 lbs. I say estimated because my guide (Mark Malfa) had a certified scale that went only to 160lbs, and this fish easily buried that thing. So I'm not sure exactly, but it's a pretty damn big fish in any case.
This trip to Texas was kind of on a whim, after viewing the pics of other monster gar on this site, I thought it would be a blast (and it was)!
The guide I hired was Mark Malfa. He's a really great guy and was a lot of fun to hang with. Definitely knows his way around bowfishing, and will travel to any spot in Texas to hunt for gar. Here's his web site:
http://www.bigfishbowfishingtexas.com
I flew into the Austin airport on Friday afternoon and Mark picked me up. We headed down to Choke Canyon, which is a reservoir maybe an hour south of San Antonio. Mark's boat was perfect for bowfishing, with a large platform surrounded by eight or so large halogen lights, powered by a good sized generator.
Once it got dark, we headed out. I found it amazing the number of fish you are able to see in the relatively clear water. The size and number of the shad in that lake make it easy to see how such a large population of gar and other species can be supported.
In any case, we saw different species of gar literally everywhere, but no monsters (perhaps the largest was in the 20-30lb range). Ended up nailing a couple of 30+ lb. buffalo, and one long-nose gar which we did not land. We pulled the boat out and tried the backwater area of a river that feeds the reservoir, but no luck there either. So we called it quits for the night.
Next morning around 11:00am, it was thunder-storming like crazy, so we decided to find a river to fish rather than being out on open water. Mark wanted to check out the Nueces River, which was about 30 minutes from Choke. We launched and raced down a few miles or so and started working our way back, hitting a number of creek channels along the way.
One of the last channels we hit seemed to have a bunch of activity on it. Many small gar splashing around, but nothing big. We headed further into the channel when there was an enormous splash about 15 yards in back of the boat. I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of the belly of a very large gar as it turned in the water, my first look at such a monster, so we decided to hang out for a while.
As we cruised past one area, I noticed some splashing near shore, on the other side of some downed trees which were everywhere in this channel. I thought what I saw was a log or something in the water, but it was moving. In fact, it was the back of a very large gar just sticking out of the water. We both got pretty excited at that point (I think Mark was more excited than I was). There was no way to get a shot from that angle, so Mark pulled the boat around to the other side of the trees and we just waited there.
After about 15 minutes, I was convinced that the gar had taken off, when out of the corner of my eye I saw this enormous head just kind of float up to the surface. It was maybe 20 ft. from the boat, and I just turned and shot quickly. There was a large splash and the line started zipping out, but then it just stopped.
Mark was freaking a bit, concerned that we had only one arrow in the fish in relatively shallow water (it wasn't that shallow - read on). I thought the arrow had pulled out because there was no movement on the line. So we started up the trolling motor and followed the line through these trees. We could still feel the fish on the other end, and Mark was preparing to take another shot at where we thought the fish was, but then it just took off! I burned my hands trying to hold the line but could not stop that monster. He headed off between these trees, out into the channel.
We tried to follow, but the boat got wedged in between some brush and other scrub that was next to the trees. I was so pumped at that point - damned if we were going to lose that fish - so I just grabbed as much of the scrub and tree limbs as I could and pushed off with my foot. This got the boat through the trees, but when I let go, the branches snapped back hard and knocked me off the front of the boat into about 7ft of water. I managed to keep the bow above me and somehow grabbed onto the railing of the platform. Mark was trying to help and I just handed him the bow and said don't worry about me, just hold onto this fish. I pulled myself back up onto the platform and we motored out into the channel to pursue the fish.
Now this fish wrapped around some partially submerged log in the channel, and once again I thought we were done. I was pulling as hard as I could on the line trying to raise the log from the river bed, and as it came up, I felt a tug on the other end. I exclaimed to Mark that the fish was still on, and he said "where the hell is it".
As we were messing with the line, I noticed this huge fish about 20 or so yards downstream, just floundering on the surface. I told mark, "check out that fish", and it took a moment to realize that was our fish with the arrow still (slightly) embedded in it's back. So we decided to cut the line of the first bow, and then motor over and put a second arrow in the fish, which is exactly what we did.
Finally, now 45 minutes later, Mark gaffed this thing under the gill plate and somehow managed to get it into the boat. It was an incredible site seeing something that big being dragged across the side of the boat, just kind of slithering in one foot at a time.
Once we landed the fish, we were spent. I was practically shaking, and on top of it all, my digital camera was on the fritz since I had it in my fanny pack when I took the nose dive off of the boat.
In the end, we pulled the boat out and found a place to purchase a disposable camera. The pictures were taken at a campground that was nearby. You could see this fish easily from the road, and we must have had twenty or more people drive into the campground to get a look and snap a photo. This really pissed off the campground manager, who called someone from the village, but when this guy showed up he was more than friendly. That's one thing I noticed about Texas - everyone down there is just so damn friendly, it's kind of unnerving.
Any pics of giant gars?
OH MY GOD!!!!
