This Just In, New Gar Fishing Method!

This just in, rope flies not the best option for gar anymore!

That's right there is another way monster chancers, as it turns out people all over have been looking for the monster fish and found a few things they did not expect. Deep in the true heart of gar country, Texas that is, Casey Smartt made a discovery chasing the gar in his local water. “My best luck has been with a tube fly circle hook set up. The fly I am currently using most is the tube fly below.  1/2" long tube and Fishair body in chart/white or grey/white, plenty of flash.  50 lb leader threaded through and pegged with toothpick on rear of tube.  Hook is a 3/0 Gammy octopus or Mustad Demon circle.  Fly is 4" long.  The long nose I fish for are usually feeding in deep water 10-20 ft, only gulping at top.  I blind cast over area of activity and use a fast sink or intermediate sink line with a steady slow twitch retrieve.”
That is some seriously deep water to chase gar, most fly guys I know don't want to cast to anything that deep. But it makes sense. So how dose Casey fish then, is he a rope guy or a treble hook guy. The answer is neither.   It’s a Circle hook.

Now when I herd this I thought, no way. What if the gar is facing towards you? You’ll miss the hook up right? In reality, no. I found that gar will still go for a side bit!
This idea is simple, the hook slides in and catches around the jaw. If the fish tunes its head, the line is stuck in the jaw. The best part is the hook needs to be pulled backwards to come out, so a barb will stop it, if the pressure in on the hook, it can only go deeper into the fish.
Is this a better hook up rate then rope? I’d say about the same, maybe more so! But there are other things that make it better.
1. Rope flies are hard to cast, if you are sight casting you have hope, but if you have to blind cast, it could be eighty to a few hundred casts before a fish. A rope fly will get heavy and hard to cast. But a tube fly with only a single hook, that is easy.  Think you can make some eighty casts with a 3/0 hook and a five inch fly?
2. Quick release, the first two gars I got on this rig was a thirteen inch longnose and a 29 inch shortnose gar, and both times it worked great. But the best part, one quick pop with pliers and the fish was free. No longer did I spend up to fifteen minutes removing the rope. This time it took a second and boom, free fish.
3. Safer fish: gar are the toughest of tough. They have bullet proof (I mean it I herd of then being shot and it not happening.) scales, and they can breathe air! But nothing can live if it doesn’t eat. Rope flies, if the gar gets away, can keep their jaws shut for a very long time, maybe too long. Most of the time the trick is to use 30 pound test line, but with a circle hook, all you need is some ten pound test and a length of fluorocarbon that is over sixteen pounds to with stand the wear and tear of their teeth. You don’t

even need a good hook set, and if the gar breaks the line, the hook will rot out, and won't inhibit their feeding.
4. Flies not just for gar: since it’s a tube fly, you don’t have to keep it in a gar only box, just change the hook and attack some browns or stripers. The sky is the limit.

Gar are fun, but not every outing will be a slam dunk. I spend most of my time fishing them from a stand up kayak. But this is not the only way to target then. Some river can provide sight cast from the bank. You just have to find gar. With a rig like this I can now cast a four inch long gar fly eighty feet, this has turned some spots, that before I just drooled over, into my new favorite honey hole. A 3/0 will work for small or large fish, have faith, and be ready for a fight. Oh, did I mention that the fish seem to fight harder on the hook rather than the rope?