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The alligator gar is one ugly fish, with few friends but new fans

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 30, 2009 at 6:32 am

Check out that picture of the ’sadly misunderstood’ fish as you read this story from the Wall Street Journal:

The sadly misunderstood alligator gar, reviled for its frighteningly huge and prehistoric appearance and rows of razor-sharp teeth, has been hunted for centuries. Fishermen despise the gar because they believe the fish devour prized bass and crappie. Swimmers and boaters fear the gar’s alligator-shaped jaws could take a chunk out of them in the water.

But in recent times, alligator gar have experienced a kind of trash-to-trophy renaissance as sportsmen discovered the thrill of hunting the beasts, which can weigh up to 300 pounds and reach 8 feet in length. Gar hunting, with rod-and-reel as well as crossbow, has spawned a booming market for guides who charge as much as $750 a day to lead their clients deep into the muddy backwaters of Texas where the monster fish thrive.

In the rural South, the prospect of bagging a trophy gator gar inspires a special brand of enthusiasm. “I don’t consider myself a redneck, but sometimes I do redneck stuff,” says Mark Malfa, a gar guide in central Texas.

Paula Boudra, an athletic 32-year-old, drove nearly six hours from Sheridan, Ark., one night earlier this month for the chance to kill her first alligator gar with a crossbow. Armed with stainless-steel, prong-tipped arrows that can pierce the gar’s thick scales, her guides, Sam Lovell and Steve Barclay, steered their flat-bottom boat into the brambly creeks of East Texas’s Trinity River.

Read more from the Wall Street Journal by clicking here.

June 30, 2009 · Filed Under Weird & Wacky Water News

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