Gar Pressure On Bass?

[JellyMan]

I fish a lake that is absolutely over runned with Gar! It gets annoying at time when they nip at my lures and rip the tails off and so forth.

Being that there are so many Gar in this lake, are the Bass doing anything different? Holding deeper? Shallow? I notice the gar sit shallow right under the water but all over the place.

Input???

[bigtimfish]

Sounds to me you just found a reason to get a new bow. ;D Is that legal in your state? It is here and it is FUN.

[JellyMan]

Sounds to me you just found a reason to get a new bow. ;D Is that legal in your state? It is here and it is FUN.

I know right?

Dam dinosaurs!!! > > > >

[Raul]

My experience with bass an gar is this:

Where bass are gar are, I don 't normally fish for gar but them stubborn sobs got the bad habit of hitting my best baits and shredding them to pieces. Ah, but there 's another side of the story, when in my mind I get this idea of fishing for them ....... they are either nowhere to be found or don 't bite, go figure.  :-?

[LCpointerKILLA]

Gar are slow, have poor eyesight, and are natural. A lot of my people I know claim they kill bass fingerlings, but I doubt it because of how slow they are. I'm sure the bass in that lake are up to their typical patterns, regardless of the large gar population. I also think this because i used to regularly fish a lot of lakes in your area, and probably all the one you have fished! lol.

I'm guessing this lake you speak of is Lake Berry in Windsong, which was actually part of the Winter Park chain at one time.

[RoLo]

If you fish in Florida, you're familiar with the Florida gar.

They're a big nuisance to the angler, and their dentures can quickly sever a soft plastic lure (it's either a gar or a pickerel).

These musky-smelling, toothy varmints are difficult to hook, which suits me fine,

but we still boat the occasional gar that was accidentally lassoed by the bill >

You can minimize your exposure to gar by avoiding shallow, weedy, sluggish areas, but bass like those area too (gulp).

Garfish are not considered harmful to bass populations. They're piscivorous so naturally they'll devour some gamefish,

but in the main they feed on minnows and young rough fish like carp and bullheads.

Roger

[DawsonH]

First of all:

They do not have poor eyesight. I can also assure you that they are not slow. Try hooking into a big longnose or even better a 100# gator gar. They will make runs and jumps that make bass look like toys. There eyes reflect light similar to the way walleys do when you shine light at them. If you want to do some thing fun, get some nylon rope and a length of 50# test braided line. Tie the rope to the line and brush it out with a hair brush, then slide a 3/8 or 1/4 ounce bullet weight down this line and peg it to the rope to make a head on it. Sight fish with it.

[crw]

In the last couple of years, I have caught a number of Gar (2.5' to 4') on the trailer hooks of spinners/Chatter baits.  They  may appear to be slow because they often just follow the lure.  Slow the lure down and they slow down.  Speed the lure up, and they speed up.  South Georgia has more than it's share of Gar and Bowfin.

[Quitlimpin]

Used to do alot of night fishing for white's & gaspers.  Would always take a few hours after we dropped the lights for the gar to show up.  Seems like we would be slayin em until the gar started cruisin and then the bite would just shut down.  IDK if it was bc of the gar but I always assumed so.  

[DINK WHISPERER]

I was thinking of starting a thread like this one before i saw this one! On two lakes i fish we have the same problem with gar. I do think they will detour bass though and this is why. After months of fishing a certain area on those a lake and catching MANY bass the bite has suddenly stopped completely there. Now the area is overrun by HUGE gar that were not there before. They are certainly not slow or have bad eye sight though! Those things will run down a lure at lightning speeds and hardly ever miss.

[Mottfia]

On the Alabama River we have times where gar will cover a bank or slough. So here's a my accounts on the situation.

I've never count a bass on good size in an immediate area being used by gar. I believe bass might see gar as a threat or too much competition( probably because of the sheer numbers that they group in). But Bass may still be around. I have caught a number of bass in areas adjacent to gar areas ( another part of the slough, deeper, or simply farther down a bank from them.)

Gar and Bass seem to use the same types of locations, just different areas of it. We all know that the both pile in shallow water but the best example I have is in summer time. Gar have a tendency to roll on top out from ledges where bass area on bottom.  

I guess this all comes down to saying that they may move the bass but bass are still around to be count  

Mottfia

Mottfia

[tentimesover]

I see lots of long nose gar here on Lake of the Ozarks.  They roll on the top of the water and always active in the early mornings.  The bass are still here but are catching them deep or near the rocky shoreline.  I tried the rope lure a little for gar this morning without success.  I put the frayed rope behind a spinner lure and the spinners kept fouling with the rope.  I think it might be as much fun to catch one of those four footers as it is catching a bass??

[SoFl-native]

Gar dont eat grown bass.

[bocabasser]

i fish the everglades a lot. all of my favorite spots have gar--big gar and lots of them. after a while you know what a gar feels like and you DON'T SET THE HOOK. sure a couple of times they will tear a tail of of your soft plastic, but generally there are bas where the gar are. i have caught many bass over 5 pounds in areas that seem over run by garfish. it is just part of the game down here.

[Dixon]

I fish a pond with a bunch of them.  We kill everyone we catch.

[done]

    They are a native species so to me, they are just part of the game. An added challenge if you will. They are fun as heck to catch though. They are nowhere near slow. I have actually had one jump over the entire rear quarter of my boat. Thing was like a missile. Came out of nowhere.

  i really would not advocate just killing them for the sake of killing them. They are part of the natural ecosystem.

[DawsonH]

Gar are native to most of the U.S. Bass aren't native to everywhere you fish, especially the Florida lm that get stocked so far and wide. Don't throw stuff on the bank to rot that is part of the ecosystem, you are going to do more harm than good.