THE FLIP SIDE: Anglers Bite Into Lake’s Toothiest Fish

GAR MAY MAKE BETTER HOOD ORNAMENT THAN MEAL

— Editor’s note: Flip Putthoff is on vacation. This column fi rst appeared in 1996.

Fish steaks fried over a driftwood campfi re had everyone scrambling for paper plates.

Potluck dishes of baked beans, sliced homegrown tomatoes and coleslaw crowded a picnic table. We helped ourselves to our fi rst bites of hot fi sh.

It didn’t taste bad - for gar.

What’s weird is the fi sh bit a crank bait one of the diners was casting for black bass. Gar don’t normally bite plugs, so it was odd the gar became our honored dinner guest.

There’s no mistaking a gar for any other fi sh.

They’re long, thin and look like they’ve been hit with the ugly stick twice.

Their slender snout with needle-sharp teeth gives these fish a ’possum kind-of grin.

Another oddity is gar don’t depend only on dissolved oxygen to survive. When the water is warm and low in oxygen during August, gar get additional oxygen by sticking their mouths out of the water and gulping air into their swim bladders

Want to catch a gar? Most folks use a “gar getter.” It’s just a piece of nylon rope maybe 6 inches long that’s combed out until it’s frayed to threads.

Look for gar near the surface and cast your gar getter over a fish. If it bites, teeth get tangled in the frayed rope. You’ve got your gar.

Cleaning them is no picnic. The hard part is peeling off their armored skin and diamond-shaped scales.

Gar will never replace crappie as top table fare.

Some at our picnic liked it.

Others didn’t.

Now and then I wonder if gar are accident prone. I see gar heads all the time when I’m walking along the Beaver Lake shoreline.

Heads bleached by the sun make a fi ne hood ornament. For grins, I mixed up a glob of J.B.

Weld and glued one to the hood of my old 1968 Ford pickup.

There it was, smiling at the world as I drove along.

It gives the truck character and I don’t have to worry about anyone stealing my fine hood ornament.

FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER, TWITTER.COM/NWAFLIP.

Outdoor, Pages 6 on 08/02/2012

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