Searching for Giant Alligator Gar in Texas - ft. LakeForkGuy

Just landed here in Houston, Texas. I'm getting picked up by a Lakeport guy, and I'm gonna go catch my alligator garter today. That's the goal, so we'll see what happens. Might get a catfish too. Bro, I'm so glad you're picking me up. You know that, right? We're gonna have a very long, interesting conversation on this long Texas drive, bro. I'm so excited you're here, buddy. Me too. I got you a gift. Really? Yeah. It's a gift. Yo, I'm hungry, bro. Can we go get some Texas food, dude? We can. My friend, first of all, welcome to Texas. Thank you. Welcome, okay? So we like to shoot a lot of guns here. We like to catch fish, and we like to eat barbecue. Is that an outlaw shirt? This isn't an outlaw shirt. I picked this up at a local gas station. See that? Wow, look at that. It's a Texas, and it's got guns that make it Texas. Dude, I like that, bro. Sitting around, sliding around, so this is for you, buddy. Is there a range around here somewhere we can go shoot off some steam? We can go kill some hogs tonight if you want to. This is gonna be fun. How deep is this river? 3.8 meters. Is it really? Give or take a few kilometers. So Justin's obviously got his metric system all jacked up there. He's in Texas, and he's using the metric system. That makes no sense to me, bro. We have our own way of measuring things here in Texas. In Texas, you measure stuff by the Texan cubit, which is the length of a bull's horn. Yeah, that's the Texas cubit. Texas cubit. It's very efficient. Look at this off-roading, guys. So we're gonna rig up the rods, get the cameras ready, and then we're gonna get on it. We're gonna try it. Justin, you feeling good, bro? Hey, last time I saw you, you were bitter, salty, just nasty. Hey, I'm good. You cleaned off, bro? That salt's gone, right? Back in my home state. Got my boy Blacktip with me. We're gonna catch some alligator gar. Brought Estella to Texas. This is a ridiculously massive reel, but this is the smallest one I got right now, so it's gonna have to do. Let's see that catch! It's right where Gator was standing about 10 minutes ago. Set fly. Back to the rigging action. Yeah, this is my mojo right here, Gator. This is my happy place. I'm just gonna tell you guys, this is probably what Josh enjoys doing most. Some people do crossword puzzles or read in their spare time. He just likes to rig and tackle. It's what makes him happy. And he's good at it. Now, I'm a big bait guy. I'm gonna put a ginormous piece of bait on. Are you okay with that? Go with your gut. I'm gonna go with my gut, dude. I'm gonna pretend right now I'm shark fishing, and I'm trying to get the biggest, baddest shark here, proportionally to alligator gar. What do you think, Justin? Fish on? Fish on? We got a fish? Dude, we got a fish. He's gonna take it. So, Justin's rod just went off. He's getting bigger. Tuner, coming up for you. Good girl. The fish picked it up, started running. He's probably 50 yards from the boat. He's literally just holding that bait in his beak right now, just right in the end of his bill. He's gonna hold it like that and go down the river and probably spool the whole spool until he gets ready to turn around. When he stops and looks back up river, he's gonna start chewing on it, and it'll be down in his throat, getting his throat once we get him, you can stick him. But if you prematurely grab him now, he's gonna spit it out. So I press the record button and the reel stops. They know. They're so sensitive. They know when you press record. Make him feel that record button, dude. Big fish, guys. This is what I came here for. In fact, if this is over 100 pounds, my lifelong gar is fulfilled. Thank you. Oh, he's under us. Oh, my gosh. See him? Oh, my gosh. He's right here. Ready? Here we go. Oh, got him. Turn the boat. Here we go. Oh, come on. No, he came off. You sure? Yeah, 100%. Dang. He was still going upstream, I think, dude. I don't know. Strike one. We've been seeing a seven footer rolling around here. This might be him right now. This could be the giant. Seven foot gar. How much do you think he weighs? 180, 200 pounds. Oh, dude, I'll buy. If we catch him like that, bro, dinner's on me tonight, boys. This is a good one, guys. He's moving. He's moving about three miles an hour right now. So we're gonna sit out here, guys, and play the patience game. Because the last two, we pulled the trigger too fast. Literally. So we're gonna sit here for the next. Could be a while. Yeah, 10, 15 minutes and try it out. And we'll, uh, when we hook him, see what happens. Ready? Okay, let's go. About to go down. Drilling all the slack. The truth is there. Here we go. Fish on, fish on, fish on. There we go. That's a big fish, dude. That's a big fish. Here we go. Now he's moving. This is what we came for. Might just have a lot of weight. Bringing him up. He's in a tree. It's like a hundred year old oak tree. You serious? Defeat, guys. The Gar beat us. Got us into a tree. Here we go. There's like a two inch ratio. Real ratio. What is this thing? Oh no, the stick. Oh, he's got some, he's got some, oh, he's got some balls, dude. Oh, hello, beautiful dude. Get the camera, get the camera. Yes, that guy's alligator Gar, baby. First one ever. Justin and I just drove two hours. We're here at the spot. And today I'm feeling it, guys. It's a little bit rainy. We got massive overcast. It's a full moon. It's looking good. Justin, you're up first, dude. I got one yesterday. Let's do it, buddy. You ready? Here we go. You got him, dude. You got him, bro. Yes, got him. Is he heavy? No, not yet. There he is. Good size one, dude. Yeah, bro. It's a nice one. Oh, man. Look at that. Dude. Alligator. Is that your first alligator Gar? That's my first alligator Gar, man. Perfect hook set, too. Look at that. Right in the lower jaw. Yeah, right in the bottom jaw. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Look at those teeth, man. Dude, that is insane, bro. That is just insane. Look at that, guys. All right, time to release this guy. There he goes, buddy. There goes a dinosaur. Golly, man. That's crazy. I mean, that's just a little one. Some giants in there, though. You got him, Hayden? Yeah. All right. We got another one on. He's on. Here he comes. 10 pounder. Nice, dude. Oh, aggressive little guy. Second Gar of the day. Oh, he took off. Took off. All right, you ready to do it? Not yet. He's still chewing on it. Guys, we got one eating right now. He's chewing on it right now. I can tell. I think he is. All right, here we go. Dude, he bit the whole line off, dude. He ate everything. It's all gone. What? Yep, that was a giant. Ate everything. The second I got tied, I felt him and then the line snapped. Look at that, tooth mark. Ding. That was a giant. That was a big fish. Let him eat too long. Well, that's what makes you guys terminal tackle so important. I stress it more than anything, you know. And sometimes you just not, you never know. You think you're prepared and you get a fish. I mean, that fish could have been 200 pounds. Who knows? And that thing could have just swallowed it the moment it ate it. We don't know. This water is so dirty, we can't see the fish. We're just guessing out here. And sometimes things happen like that. When we pulled up to the first spot, we saw a bunch of fish rolling. We caught two guard right away. Had a few more bites, but we stopped seeing them roll. So we're moving now to another spot where a deep hole is. Hopefully we find a giant. Justin's got a fish on right now. Walking the bank, letting him feed. I think he's chewing it. Starting to chew, shaking his head. He's really shaking it. He's eating it, dude. He's eating it. Okay, here. You want to set? He stopped. He stopped, but I'm going to take him. I think he's eating it right now, dude. I think so. We got rain, dude. I think he's eating it. He's coming back upriver now. Yep. What? He is off. Dang, dude. I shouldn't have, I should have just kept letting him take line without any pressure at all. You know, I think when I stopped and held up. Yeah, I think you just took your bait, dude. I think he was eating it at the right time. Dang, dude. That sucks. Taking it? I think he's got it. Got it? He's got it. Yep. Oh, man. He's there. Here we go. There we go. Oh, he's pulling good, dude. Oh, there he goes. Little guy, dude. Just a little one. Yeah, little dinker. Little, little guy. Not too shabby. Look at those teeth, guys. Look at those teeth. He's opening his mouth up for you. Ooh. Hey there, baby. That's what we call the, uh, oh my gosh, did he really just do that release? And that's how that goes, guys. Not the monster we're looking for, but it's a start. Something big, guys. Taking line real good. Big tail. He's got a big tail. He's eating it right now. He's chewing on it. There we go. We got a big boy on here. We got a big boy. No. You come off. That was the real fish. Oh, no. What happened? He didn't get hooked, man. Dadgummit. That was a real, that was a real, dude, that fish was big, bro. Oh, he's big. Probably had him at bone. I had, look, I did have him. The hook, the hook, the hook, the hook's done. I need a file. Yeah. Day three, final day at the flyout this afternoon. I'm gonna tell you what, these alligator gar, they are tough. They're big. They're smart. They remind me a lot like tarpon. And we're gonna try to make it happen today. We got about four hours of fishing until we have to leave. So see what happens. How much line you got up? A lot. He's picking up speed again. This could be a big fish. Hope you guys can, can appreciate the, uh, the amount of, of time and, uh, just. We're getting really low in this pool too. Brutal. Just not catching anything for a while. It's been, it's been a journey. Trust me. We're low in this pool, guys. We're gonna go chasing now. Stick with us. I think we're going to get this one. I think, I think this is, this is the one dude. This is the one. No trees over there, right? Oh gosh. Look at that freaking tree, dude. That's bad. If it gets close to it, you're gonna smash it. Is that right? Yeah, I think he's on the other side of it. This is not good. There's a leader. Fish is right here, dude. Where? Well, I'm gonna set it then, dude. Here we go. Ready? Got him. Are you freaking kidding me? Hey, you got him, dude. I thought he was way bigger. Ball of you, bro. Here, put him on deck. Put him on deck right here. Watch out because he's going to go to flop and we got hooks everywhere. Yeah. We're all barefooted. Let him go. Yeah. Look at that, guys. Alligator gar, baby. Big one. He's smiling for you. Oh, he's got some chompers, baby. He's got some chompers. He's probably about 30 pounds. It's a nice fish, man. Look at that. That's so awesome. Thought this fish was 80 pounds. Turned out to be 25. But we're gonna let him go. He's a beauty. There he goes into the depths. Alligator gar. They are a really cool fish. I mean, that's been a dream fish of mine for a long time to catch one of those. And they're, I can't wait to, uh, happy I caught that one. But I will be honest, I am looking for a true giant, 100 plus pound fish. And I think we've seen him here all day. And we got, we still have a rod on the bank down there. So there could be a fish on there right now by the time we get back. Man, we've, we've spent about 25 minutes on this fish just to hook him. It takes a long time. Huge amount of patience. If you don't have the patience, it's not happening. I'm going to be honest. I never thought an alligator gar with a mouth that size would take that long to eat a bait. It really, really pushed my limits. I've caught much smaller gar with smaller mouths that took nowhere near as long as these guys did to eat a bait. But that's really intrigued me about these fish. I can't wait to get back to Texas to get on these fish. I can't thank Hayden and Jason enough from Sawgrass Outfitters. They did a great job. They put us on big fish. We saw them rolling all day long. Unfortunately, the bite wasn't as good as we hoped for. Make sure you guys go check them out. Facebook page is in the description. Hope you guys enjoyed this video and we'll see you next time.