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Hi Rick, and Welcome,

S. Texas! You may be just the right person to ask about gar on the fly. I'm in Louisiana often, and there's a couple of rivers and a large freeway pond in particular that have spotted gar and alligator gar. I'm most interested in the spotted gar, because I am pretty confident I can handle them with an 8wt, but I'd like to 'hook' one of the alligator gar just for giggles, once anyway.

Any flies you can recommend, and technique. I spent most of 2015 trying to break the code and not there yet.

Thanks,

Steve

Hold my beer, I am gonna try something. I have only fished for gar a couple dozen times, and Hooks don't help out a whole bunch. I have tied flies made from the finest nylon rope you can find and put a trailer hook on them. You tie a pretty large chunk of the rope (6 inches combed out) with some eyes on front and some flash onto a long shanked size 2 hook, and put a treble hook as a trailer secured by wire. When the gar eats the fly, let them chomp on it for as long as you can resist, to get the teeth caught up in the fine nylon. I am no expert, but thats my spin on it.

Will you share your weight training history Rick?

Paul, in an earlier question, more or less, you asked about the evolution of my cast. I will try to brief, but mostly likely boring. I fished in an location that had little use for shooting heads and sinking lines, and spent most of time with weight forward floating lines fishing in very shallow water for redfish. It is very windy here at times, and of course you listen to the idea of " getting under the wind" , which often leads to side arm casters to keep the loop lower to the water, rather than tighter faster loop, and I think thats where I started this idea of a wider arch. Quite honestly, I didn't start looking at any of this closely, until a Sage rep named Carey Marcus told me there are casting tournaments that you can win some pretty cool prizes. He seemed to think I could do ok in these tournaments. I went and had my ass handed to me by Jimmy G. and Lance Egan. This made me look at casting in a different light, and thats where it started. These guys had loops with great top formed leading edges, but the loop near the rod tip was actually pretty wide, which kind of goes against anything I had heard or seen before. These guys had wider arcs than I had ever seen, and thats when I came back home and went into the indoor roller hockey ring that you and I cast in, and started to really screw up.

I need to cook dinner for the kids I will be back.

Lee Cummings wrote:Will you share your weight training history Rick?

large bottles of scotch. There are some very whimsical people on the board with intelligent senses of humor. Just want to make certain you are serious, or screwing with me. LOL

I'm being as genuine as I take my weight training Rick.

Lee, I have been weight training for sports (football, track and fitness) for much of my life. Now I help my daughters for their sports doing the same. I am studied in every type of weight training from bodybuilding to plain old fitness and weight loss. I have not used weightlifting to specifically target casting, but I don't feel time spent lifting has hurt as far as casting is concerned. I personally feel that martial arts training would be very helpful to casting, but sadly never took it that far. Never to late. I don't know if that touched on your question, but would be glad to elaborate more on my own programs if interested.

Rick Hartman wrote:Paul, in an earlier question, more or less, you asked about the evolution of my cast. I will try to brief, but mostly likely boring. I fished in an location that had little use for shooting heads and sinking lines, and spent most of time with weight forward floating lines fishing in very shallow water for redfish. It is very windy here at times, and of course you listen to the idea of " getting under the wind" , which often leads to side arm casters to keep the loop lower to the water, rather than tighter faster loop, and I think thats where I started this idea of a wider arch. Quite honestly, I didn't start looking at any of this closely, until a Sage rep named Carey Marcus told me there are casting tournaments that you can win some pretty cool prizes. He seemed to think I could do ok in these tournaments. I went and had my ass handed to me by Jimmy G. and Lance Egan. This made me look at casting in a different light, and thats where it started. These guys had loops with great top formed leading edges, but the loop near the rod tip was actually pretty wide, which kind of goes against anything I had heard or seen before. These guys had wider arcs than I had ever seen, and thats when I came back home and went into the indoor roller hockey ring that you and I cast in, and started to really screw up.

I need to cook dinner for the kids I will be back.

I then started toying with ways to widen my arc and delay turnover (right foot forward), and after a few years of this, developed a cast that Paul witnessed in Idaho falls. It created a way to carry a long line with a great leading edge, but again, as Paul can attest, a wide loop at the rod tip. Also looking like a Buffalo. After watching this on video, I wanted to keep my stroke length and arc, but wanted to narrow the loop. I then started learning to lift the rod but up to achieve 180 degrees rather than drop the hand all the way back behind me to achieve the same, but get a wider loop. Which essentially pulls the cast a bit downward before going forward, thus risking touching the grass, or water. There is more to it, but it gets to be long and boring.

Any thoughts on entering the world championships, Rick? It's a fascinating bunch of people. Very competitive but in a good way. There is a real hot bed of casting knowledge at the moment.

What's the best part abut guiding for you?

Cheers Paul

Rick Hartman wrote:I think one of the most emotional catch is one that wasn't caught. We saw a tailing permit down in Guadalupe, (French West Indies). It was a record fish easily. It ate well, and was hooked well. Since the area has such steep drop offs,(100 feet plus), the permit hit a drop off and went straight down, and pulled the hook. For some reason I remember more than any fish I have caught.

Hi Rick.
300+ days a year fly casting, wow. Not many I've come across casting that much. Especially not when fishing a lot as well.
Same for me. I always remember the fish being lost (big ones in the first place) more often (and more emotional) than the ones I caught. Any idea how many Redfish you have caught in all these years?
Thanks
Bernd