Dream trips: Texas Gar

Dallas Fort Worth  

The Dallas weather didn't shine on us nearly as well as Austin. A spring cold front met our team in Dallas right before the Bass Master Classic, and as much as fish love a dramatic weather change, the bite was just as cold as the wind. 

We managed to get on a handful of bass,and a couple crappie, but nothing like we knew was possible.

We started to believe this whole region was going to give us the cold shoulder. That is until we met Captain Milton Nieto of Xtreme Trophy Fishing. Captain Nieto took us down the muddy waters of the Trinity River, the same river featured in the show River Monster, after giant alligator gar. 

This wasn’t necessarily finesse fishing. We each had a carp head on the end of our line and cast into a slow, deep hole in the river. Alligator gar can live in slow, and un-areated water that many other fish cant survive in, because of a special swim bladder that helps them absorb oxygen from the air, as well. 

They are voracious, yet slow moving predators that ambush fish, mammals, reptiles and even birds, using the murky water to their advantage. 

Fishbrain’s marketing director, JJ, started things off for the day, as he usually does. A few twitches of his rod tip gave away to some long awaited action. He wanted to set the rod instinctively, but listened to the captain and let the fish take the bait and run with it as his pulse pounded. Finally he gave a massive hook set, meant to punch through the mouth of a dinosaur, which broke open the slow morning with one of his biggest catches. The gar plunged deep, using its weight to stay on the bottom, but after over five minutes of tension, JJ looked at his overall personal best fish in disbelief as it sat in his arms.

The day didn’t end there, however. 

Fishbrain, team member David Ivarsson, normally a fly specific fisherman, traded in his fly rod for a spinning rod. Angler instincts don’t go away just because you switched rod types, however. Even without the benefit of one of his far more sensitive fly rods, Ivarsson felt the slightest taps which alluded to a full take of his carp head. He then expertly let the fish take the bait and run before setting the hook and reeled in a five foot dinosaur. 

The day lulled on with little action, with the Texas sun beating down on the anglers and the colored water of the Trinity River. It was almost time for the Captain to turn the boat around and the team had flights to catch. 

One last try, one last hole, one last cast; they’re all fishing tropes we live by, but how often do they pay off and when they do, how big was the payoff? 

With little more than a hope and a prayer, Fishbrain’s product VP, Jens, sent his carp head into one last deep, muddy, hole. It didn't take long, before the rod tip twitched and bounced. A hook set suited for Thor, god of thunder, bent the rod and line immediately peeled off the reel amid the sound of the drag. 

It was clear almost immediately that the fish was huge. The strength and speed of taking the line off the reel made that very clear. The gar took a page right out of the gar playbook and went straight down to the bottom of the hole. It took an enormous amount of effort to pull the gar off the bottom and all that effort was for nothing when it went on a run and went right back down to the bottom.

It took half an hour to get the fish up to the surface and because of its size the captain had to lasso the fish to get it to shore. 

When it was finally in shallow enough water, it took three people wading to hold the gar and run water through the gills after the incredible fight. We briefly held the fish above water for photos because of the gar’s unique ability to gulp air. 

We set the massive fish loose after a well deserved rest, and watched it swim back into the muddy water. It was as if we watched a prehistoric creature disappear millions of years back into the past and although we cheered, hugged and slapped hands there was a hint of doubt in each of our minds that actually just saw and held a fish that special.

The boat ride home slowly took us all back to the mundanity of day to day life. Plane rides, security checks and office work were back into each of our futures, but no matter how mundane life would get we would always have the experience of putting our hands on a real river monster in Texas.

We’ve seen some of the best that the Lone Star state has to offer in terms of fishing, but we’ve barely scratched the surface. We will be back.

Now let’s go fishing.