Gar, Longnose

It was at most 4 feet long, probably less, but was really fat and heavy. I had no way of weighing it in my kayak, given its nasty attitude, but it was easily over 15 lbs and probably pushing 20. I'm not a fish exaggerator, so I think that's a conservative guess. When it first came into view (it took the rope on the bottom in murky water), it was so wide I thought I'd somehow got a carp to swallow the lure and refuse to let go. And before that, I thought I'd wrapped around a submerged tree--it wouldn't move, then gave slightly. You know that feeling when you snag a big branch and can bring it in slowly, a few inches at a time, wondering how hard you can pull without breaking line or rod? It felt like that. At the surface, though, it exploded. Soaked me a couple times, pulled me 100 yards. Left me and my kayak covered in slime. Globs of it. 

Through the whole thing, the rope never let go. I love rope lures. Never caught a longnose any other way.

Funny thing was that I met--totally randomly at the boat launch an hour earlier--the owner of the company that makes the grips/scale I use to weigh fish. I now kind of wish I'd at least tried to weigh the fish so I could tell him whether his grips work on gar.

As for good photos, I'll go back and catch a ton more there when it warms up further. The lake's official name--not just to oddballs like Garman and me, but on maps and signage--is Gar Lake.