crazy catch!!!

[flies only]

hey guys , caught this prehistoric loking bast@rd in a drainage ditch in naples florida this september. caught a couple of them on poppers in a ditch that was about 15 feet across. had some issues trying to hold and dehook him.

[flatbottom]

looks like a gar of some kind. They grow them big in Lake Murry SC. I was swimming on a break from Fort Gordon one august when I was told watch out for the gar.......one went by under me 6 foot long. I cut the swimming short that day.

[Tenacious]

It's an alligator gar, we have a ton of them down south.

[CapeMayRay]

Looks, like it would fight good. Do they hit flies fairly often? From what I read it seems like there is a lot of good fishing in the ditches all around Florida.

[flies only]

ray, the water was so dark you wouldn,t even see the approach. the water looked black. they were hitting happy face flies that were barely twitched. when the first one hit, the swirl was pretty cool. didn't know what i had.

[CapeMayRay]

When you say they were hitting happy face flies is that a fly or do you mean the color?

[Nepptune]

Don't those Gars get about to nearly ten feet in length in some places Stateside? I think the unofficial record is around 380 odd pounds or something......

Couple guys up North on Lake Ontario target them to teh 20 pound range and have tied up a stinger style fly just for them as with their mouth and teeth structure, they can be tough to hook and keep hooked.
They basically tie a Seducer type fly, with a trailing stinger around 2 to 3 inches long of Tracewire with a tiny treble hook on it.... I don't know if that offends your ethics, but it certainly works looking at their catches!!!