# fly fish for gar??????



## wabi (Jun 14, 2008)

Just curious as to how many have tried it, and if they have tips for success.

I recently gained access to about a 1/4 mile of a stretch of Ohio Brush Creek that has been inaccessable except by boat for several years now. 
(One of the benefits of being a self-employed plumber is using a landowner's misfortune to your advantage. He had leaking drain lines and I casually threw in while I was repairing them, "Say, you own quite a bit of frontage along the creek, any chance I could get permission to fish there?" He was happy to be able to flush the toilet again, and I have a new place to fish! )

I know this stretch has quite a few gar in it and I've never caught one on the fly rod yet, so I've been busy researching & tying. 

This is my first attempt, about 6" total length and tied on a #6 4x long streamer hook. I just set up a spare spool for my 8wt rod/reel with a sink tip line and a flouro leader, too.


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

Wabi, thats cool, I grew up fishing OBC and yup, the muddy pools are loaded with LN gar and not much else. The problem I see if youll have to use a john boat/canoe to get into those pools to find where the Gar are sitting so you can cast to them, a 1/2 mile pool may have 100 gar in there but all in a 50 ft circle so you will still need the boat to manoeuver around. 
Dont wast your time until early May and then youll find them very active in a pre spawn pattern, lounging/sunning/basking and gulping near the surface. This is the best time to fish them! Long cast right past there nose when you can sight fish them is ideal, they are not line shy, so a 10-12 lb mono leader is plenty and seldom will you ever break off except when a bigger one does a 180 and takes off getting your line around a gill plate or scales, youll get better at keeping the body off the leader durring the fight with experience. 
Short strips with the rope flies will normally take fish, just have to learn to "not" set the hook and when they are tugging, just slowly lift the rod up and normally thy wil be on, sometimes they will pull off though, it happens. 

As far as your fly goes, to me, in my opinion, BTW, are 3 issues, looks like too much rope, maybe try half thet amount, be sure to comb it all the way out to get the crinkles out of it, , and at 6". is much bigger then what I have found to work the best but down south, they use bigg ones but have abigger average size, I like about 4-5" total. Last point is while the eyes look good, I have found in 15 years of long rodding for these guys that the white rope, red head seems to be the best pattern, the eyes and or shad spots have never proven to me to be any more effective then the stardard red/white. Just my opinions here, I have experimented for many years and so take that for what its worth, give me a shout sometime and would love to hit your stretch and I can show you a bunch of different ways to catch them. Send me a PM with your phone and we can discuss a little more. 

Salmonid


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## wabi (Jun 14, 2008)

I shortened the flies a bit (about 4"), thinned them out a little, brushed them out, and epoxied the heads. 
I'll get in touch when it warms up and maybe we can schedule a trip to try them!


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## crkwader (Nov 7, 2008)

lookin' good. did you epoxy the heads?


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

I tried this a few times last summer on the Hocking. Along the OU campus, in summer, there's usually a lot of small gar in all the little back eddy's on the river. My rope flies are similar to yours, but mine were tied a little skinnier and I did not epoxy the head. These gar I was after were in shallow water, so I just coated the threads well with head cement. The flies stayed real close to the surface. I was sight casting to them, and typically the best retrieve was erratic. Strip hard past them to get their attention, pause it, then give it another hard strip when they are right behind it and they'd strike. My "hook up" percentage was probably around 60%. The key is if they shake their head. If they just snap shut, the fly can pull right out. If they shake their head, it's over.

A couple of things to be careful with, always have a pair of gloves. I forgot them on one trip and got cut by their teeth a few times. Another thing, have something to prop their mouth open (can be anything that will fit, I used a pair of hemostats) while you work the rope free. And make sure you get all the rope out of their mouth, don't cut any of it and try not to break them off, because most likely they will die a slow death if they can't open their mouth.


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## Metzie (Feb 11, 2009)

Wabi, are you talking about the brush creek in jefferson county? I am not far from there and would be up for chasing gar with the fly rod!


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## wabi (Jun 14, 2008)

No,
Brush Creek in Adams county. 

I'm hoping it won't be too much longer before I can get to the property I have permission to fish and make an assessment of the possibilities. It's been a few years since I was on that stretch, but hopefully it hasn't changed much.
I've got to see how the landowner feels about me bringing someone along, too.


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## Fishaholic69 (Apr 6, 2007)

I caught a gar on a black clouser minnow before. actuallly hooked it with the hook too even tho its mouth is so thin. must a got lucky!


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