On June 19, 2012 I headed out to the Red River alone with some rods and the NuCanoe, hoping for a giant!
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I hit the river at about 0930 and made my way down river with the Frontier 12 packed full of gear. Because I was heading INTO the wind, the trolling motor really came in handy.. once I reached the bend that I typically fish I started trying to catch buffalo for bait from the shore. As the first two hours passed without landing one I grew impatient and decided to settle on the older frozen bait (which I usually use only as backup)… old carp from a local pond.
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The last time out at this river we had a lot of trouble getting picked up despite there being a lot of fish in the area and I figured it was because the gar were staying suspended, and not on the bottom… the water in this particular bend is close to 20 feet deep… which is irregularly deep for most parts of the Red River. These isolated holes like this are like a virtual magnet for the huge gar that live in the river, as there aren’t many of them to choose from.
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I had the idea to use balloons as floats and try suspending carp chunks directly in the current or in eddies from the bank. Ends up it works… works quite well!
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It was not long, as I was anchored down in the middle of the channel, that I observed my balloon go down (they kept popping in the heat of the sun…)
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Because I did not want to be dragged around in a small watercraft by a potential monster, I would follow the fish for a while before putting over to the shore to engage the fish from solid ground. I lit into what felt like a monstrous fish, and it was. I battled it out with a gar that I am certain exceeded 150lb until I had the monster all the way to the shore. Armed only with a home made snare pole, I went in after her. Well… 1 man, vs a 7 foot long fish proved to be quite the conundrum… fish like this simply require an extra set of hands and manpower.. that became painfully obvious. As I was attempting to noose the fish, she thrashed, and my noose sinched around my trace line and pulled the hook free (she was shallow hooked). She writhed around totally free in the mud for a moment and with reckless abandon I did a belly flop right onto her and we were in for it!… I wrestled with her for a moment but she powered out of my grip and got AWAY!!!! I could not believe I had just lost my biggest fish ever and she was literally in and out of my arms.
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Maybe 2 hours later I had a second take, this fish was much smaller… After a short but spirited battle I captured the 50-60lb alligator gar… had to have been one of the only SMALL ones that live there. After a few disappointingly mediocre photos, I let the little fella go.
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Another 2 hours or so passed before I got another run, but this one was… THE ONE! This was the gar pushing 200lb that I have been searching for. How do I know? after some time following the fish I saw her surface in front of the canoe and was shocked by how massive this fish was. Most alligator gar have a olive green, almost bluish look when they are under water, but this one came up so big, old and ancient she had this weathered grey scarred up look that sent chills down my spine. Well over 7 feet long, I know this fish was closer to 200lb than any other ive seen. Disaster struck of course…. the fish found its way over to a steep bank and finagled its way under some sort of underwater snag where she dropped the bait and of course caused me to lose a good rig.
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I called my brother Travis, who was in the Dallas area for business reasons, and expressed my frustrations… he decided to head my way.
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After Travis arrived we got to work, and near the end of the day I got one more nice run. Once again, I saw this fish surface, another monster over 100lb. This time everything came together… the hook-set, the fight, all was textbook and with Travis’s help we got her noosed properly and landed! The fish measured 6’5, just like the last one! hell I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same fish, though this one did look THICKER. I would estimate the fish around the 130lb mark.
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