It was a typical day in LSPland, searing heat, a couple of rods and a near empty pier below Lake Whitney dam; I like that, no pressure. And there were lots of fish, Black Drum, shoals of Carp, one or two Bass, the odd predatory Perch and squadrons of Gar.
Don't waste time, get down to business and cast off. That meant one rod rigged with Shad and a sinker, a catfish rig, with a view to getting at the large bottom feeders. Off it spun into the depths. Rod #2 was opportunistic, weighted with two split shots and baited with a worm, for casting.
#2 struck first. Tug, pull, strike. Up came a respectable Drum, full of fight, good result. Then things slowed down, with the occasional Drum and not much else.
I was on the point of calling it a day, 5 Drum and 2 Perch down, when rod #1 started to play out. A Gar was on, you could see it, with a silvery Shad stuck between its teeth. At this point you're tempted to pull up hard for quick hookset. Error. The Gar will drop your hook like a poster of Seth Rich at a DNC convention.
No, don't do that. Instead, let the Gar go with the bait, open your bale, lighten the drag, do not give the suspicious, wary Gar any reason to drop the bait and your hook; let him run. He'll do that and stop, let him run again and then, after about five minutes or so of letting the line and the fish out, tighten up and set the hook.
BOOM. The Gar will thrash, dive, run and leap, heading downstream like a furious torpedo. Play him out, you've got a fight on your hands, and bring him in.
That happened twice today and it made Bass fishing, which is awesome, seem tame. For sure, it demands patience, lots of it, but when you connect with these formidable fish it's a whole different ball game. Big fun, I tell you.
Some people eat Gar, I don't. My two leviathans went back to fight again another day.
Fish on,
LSP
