The Tale of a Texan Adventure

Part 3: Alligator Gar

By Gijs van Straten

“Y’all fixin’ degogittem?” The beerbellied gentleman asked. Rik and I were preparing to launch his sleek little Water Moccasin 140 at a public boat ramp in the Brazos River near Waco, Texas. The man seemed friendly enough, and I told him that we were sure going to try. “Lemme showye a li’l sumthin’ ye might could use fer bait,” he said, as he ambled over to his own little boat from which several ropes were hanging into the water. He grabbed one of the ropes, and hoisted out a very impressive Flathead Catfish he had caught by “danglin’ a li’l perch on o'er the side,” or words to that effect. I remarked that it looked like he'd had himself a good morning’s fishing, and the gentleman added that his catch “might could go sixty.” Having never (yet) caught a Flathead Catfish, I was in no position to question his obvious expertise. I knew these fish grow to great weights, but I did think that sixty pounds seemed a bit on the high side for this particular specimen. The gentleman lowered his fish back into the water, and showed us three more average sized Flatheads he had tied to another rope. Rik and I were impressed with the man’s catch, but we were also saddened, for it was very clear to us that none of these fish were going to swim again. But we knew that most Americans take a very different approach to their fishing than we do, so we left him to it. Rik fired up his 18 horsepower outboard and we went speeding upstream. So we now knew that the Brazos housed large Flathead Catfish, but, impressive though they were, we were not after them (not that we would mind catching one, of course). We had come down to the Brazos for something even more outrageous; the Beast of Beasts, the Dinosaur Eater, the Alligator Gar.

We had tried and failed to catch the mythical Alligator Gar some days earlier at Lake Livingston, and had received word that these creatures also lived in the Brazos. This was convenient, as it was a much shorter drive from Rik’s place in Fort Worth. The Brazos was truly beautiful. As ever, Turkey Buzzards circled overhead and the banks were wonderfully overgrown. The mud, though, was very different from the mud we had come to know on the Trinity. The Trinity was lovely indeed, but its mud was beige and rather dull. The Brazos mud on the other hand, was strikingly reddish in hue, and consequently the Brazos itself ran red as well. Also, the abundant trees seemed to be an altogether more vibrant shade of green, and everything appeared to exude a stronger energy, a more powerful presence. We felt like visitors to another world. We could really believe that here there’d be monsters. It seemed fitting.

Of course it was still true that neither of us had ever seen, let alone caught an Alligator Gar before, so we knew nothing other than what we had heard and read. The Brazos did look very fishy though, almost ludicrously so. And so we once again sped rather aimlessly upstream, trying to decide if one spot looked marginally more mesmerizing than another. We passed a sandbar that was positioned beautifully in a bend, Rik especially liked the look of it. It did seem to be calling to us, but we carried on upstream to see what else we could find. A bend or two later, we found something. We came upon a little sidestream that joined the main river, and the confluence was strewn with fallen trees. This seemed to be the place to start. We unloaded our gear, took some very large baitfish from the cooler, and cast in the direction of the submerged branches. We stuck the broomsticklike rods straight up in the mud and put the reels in freespool, with the clicker on. All the while, Longnose Gar were rolling in the sluggish shallows of the sidestream, so we took out our spinning rods and began to cast our “Hookless Lures” which had done so well for us in Gateway Park, but had inexplicably failed to bring us a single fish at Lake Livingston. They did the trick on the Brazos though, and it did not take us long to snatch several Longsnouts, though none of them very big; the best being a brace of forty inchers I managed to entangle by casting my lure into the crease in the current where the sidestream met the main river. They were very fast fighters though, setting off on some blistering runs in the quicker water.

No monsters came calling. Both of us did get some unconvincing bites on our huge baits, but it soon became clear that these were coming from bottomfeeding Longnose Gar. I “hooked” and lost a very large one, and managed to land a far less impressive specimen that had entangled itself in the line. This was not the place; we decided to stop wasting our bait. Every so often, we would see and hear an absolutely enormous flap, splash or swirl under the overhanging branches way over on the far side of the main river, but we could never make out what was causing it. The current on that side was much too strong to allow confident fishing, so we set off downstream, back to the sandbar that was still calling us.

As inviting as it looked, this was not the spot.

Minutes later, we arrived and pulled the boat ashore. As we were carrying our gear to a shady spot under a tree, we heard a very heavy rustling in the bushes beyond. We immediately fell quiet and started to strenuously scan the thicket we judged to be source of the disturbance, but we could see nothing. We couldn’t believe that something so close and apparently large and cumbersome could still elude us. It sounded like a vastly overgrown hedgehog, and when I finally saw what it was, we understood why. Less than ten yards away, well over two feet in length and very high-backed, contently rooting about in the undergrowth, was an Armadillo! We were thrilled, as we had not seen a live one before, and both of us instinctively (but very carefully) reached for our cameras. Rik had his out first, and as he was closer to the strange animal, and his camera has a larger lense, and most importantly, Rik is an infinitely better photographer than I am, this was a good thing. He stooped and stalked forward, and the armor plated Armadillo, which in the previous moment had looked so oblivious and almost sluggish, immediately disappeared into the dry earth. We were left puzzled and amused; what an amazing place we were in. Rik had managed to snap one single fuzzy photograph, capturing the strange creature’s hind quarters and long scaly tail. We were very pleased to have finally seen an Armadillo wandering about. All the specimens we had previoulsy seen, were unfortunate souls who had not survived a nocturnal attempt to cross the road. Never a pleasant sight. Usually, Turkey Buzzards were picking at their remains, or sitting in a nearby tree by the half dozen, like a gang of black-trenchcoated hoodlums planning a heist.

But we were here to fish. I picked out a fresh Shad from the cooler, attached it to the anchor-like hook, and flicked it out just a few yards to were our sandbar was causing a barely noticeable -though very enticing- eddy in the current. I had no weight on the line at all, and waited for the bait to settle in what felt like a nice position. The water there could not have been more than about four or five feet deep, but that was enough. I planted the rod in the sand, switched on the clicker, and set the reel in freespool. Rik followed suit and we sat down in the scorching sand to await events. Some soothing clouds had appeared in the sky, allowing us to sit out in the open, overlooking the river. The Brazos was clearly full of life, although ducks and other waterfowl were ominously absent. Turtles of varying shapes and sizes would show themselves every so often, and Longnose Gar were rolling by the dozens. None of them were very large, but occasionally we would see and/or hear something surface well downstream, right in the middle of the river, that simply defied belief. If some of the very large Longnose Gar we would see in Gateway Park were heartstopping to behold, the “Things” we saw leaping in the Brazos were just outrageous. They were always too far away to clearly make out what type of fish they were, so all we could do was guess and be amazed. Were they perhaps very large Buffalo? They can grow to well over seventy pounds. Neither of us thought that the monstrous Flathead Catfish were of a leaping inclination, so we ruled them out. Another possibility, of course, was that these were the fish we had come here for, the astounding Alligator Gar. Or maybe it was a group of hippoes holding a diving competition.

Our rods among the reeds on the sandbar; awaiting events…

My bait had not been in the water very long (at least it felt like a short time), when the line fell slack. At first I hesitantly thought that it might be due to some change in the current, and I carefully went over to my rod to check. As soon as I had picked the rod out of the sand, the line started to stream from the reel at a ridiculous pace. Rik asked what was going on, and I replied that “Something” was taking line, and not just a little bit. It just kept going and going, and I told Rik that he should come and have a look at the reel, just for a laugh. He did. And he did laugh. I didn’t know what the heck to do with this, but I knew I had to do something before all the line was gone. I engaged the drag and “struck,” though that term is out of place here, as it implies that I asserted a measure of control over the proceedings. The opposite was the case. If the line had been streaming from the reel before, now it was simply flying out as I half stepped, half fell into the water. I stood waist-deep as I tightened and tightened the drag, but could make no impression. Suddenly, the possibility of being “spooled” seemed frighteningly real. The reel held over two hundred yards of eighty pound braid, but most of it was already gone, and the underwater freight train to which I had become attached showed no signs of stopping. What had I gotten myself into?!

I thightened up as far as I dared, and then I tightened up some more, but it did nothing to slow down whatever was on the other side of my line. As a final act of desperation I resorted to trying to block the reel by hand. Far from subtle, but the times would not allow subtleties; this was a primeval struggle, and so far I was on the losing end. Somehow, someway, it did the trick. I managed to slow down, stop, and -wonder of wonders- eventually even turn the fish. For it was a fish after all, and not the entire world that was trying to drag me off downstream. Both Rik and I felt some elation at my little triumph. That is when the fight started.

I had turned the fish, yes, but now I had to get it back to me. We had no clue were it was, except that it was definitely well over a hundred and fifty yards downstream, probably around a slight bend in the river, and maybe over in the next county. I planted the butt of the rod in my stomach, and started a slow pumping retrieve. The monster did not agree, and it thumped and shook with great fury. It may have been miles away, but its ancient force pulsed all the way up the braided line which stretched and twanged over the Brazos’ swirling surface. This did not feel like fishing at all; it felt like I was being beaten up. I am not the fittest man that walks, and my arms soon tired. Also, the butt of the rod was digging and stabbing rather unpleasantly into my stomach with each horrendous lunge the beast made. Rik remembered that these rods came with a sort of padded cone that fit over the butt. We had taken them off to stick the rods in the sand, but Rik quickly found one and handed it to me. It brought some relief, and I resumed the battle with added vigor.

After what felt like a lifetime, we saw a gigantic swirl and splash in the middle of the river, about one hundred yards downstream. “That can’t be it..!” I cried in desperation. “I’m pretty sure it is,” Rik said. And of course it had to be it; my line was pointing right to that spot. I couldn’t believe how far I still had to go. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but least we could now follow where the fish was. After a few more straining heaves from my end, it went right over to the far side of the river and came very close to where a man and his son were fishing from their little jon boat under the steep bank. With a tremendous turn of speed it then doubled back across the breadth of the stream and was under our bank before we knew it. The line scythed through some dry reed stems (no worries with the gear we were using) and by now I had lost all sense of time and reason. I battled on in some sort of trance. We still had not seen the fish, so we still were not certain of what it was. Later still, it surfaced in full view for the first time and we saw a long and broad pair of jaws that left us in no doubt. I was squeaking like small wounded animal and talking gibberish for the last few minutes of the fight, and I quickly dragged myself out of the water when I got the fish close. Fortunately, there was a small muddy ditch in the bank that allowed us to beach the Beast fairly easily.

The closest your intrepid correspondent will get to touching a dinosaur

As the five foot long Alligator Gar lay in the mud, it took me a few moments to adjust to the idea that now I had to try and hold him up for a picture. Even Rik, who is fazed by no beast, was slightly taken aback by this prehistoric creature with its shovel-like mouth. The width of it was especially impressive. It soon became evident, however, that the fish was simply to heavy and tired to thrash about and inflict serious damage when out of the water, and it just lay there, its ancient eyes seeming to see nothing at all. The father and son steered their boat over for a closer look. “Y’all won’t believe how big them thangs git,” the father said. I told him we knew that they got a lot bigger than this, but that this would do for me. 

After we had amazed them with our intentions of letting the fish swim again, the father and son soon went off upstream in search of some catfish. I was finding it hard to hold my fish up long enough for a decent picture, so I cradled the beast in my arms and carefully waded into the water. I washed the mud from his flanks and managed to just lift him up above the surface for a quick snap or two. When I released him, he swayed along on the surface until he reached the middle of the river, where he went down like a submarine amidst a mass of bubbles. Standing chest-deep in the muddy stream and slowly sinking, covered in mud, sweat and slime, I saluted, at 155 centimeters (five feet) and around about sixty pounds, the biggest small fish I had ever caught.

As we were packing up and getting Rik’s little boat out of the water at the end of this momentous day, the son of the beerbellied gentleman who had wished us good luck that morning emerged from the camper van they had parked in the shade of some trees by the boat ramp. He asked how we had done. “We got something,” I told him. He told us his dad had a forty-two pound catfish inside.

1It’s hard to believe that almost two years have passed since my Texan adventure. I do not hate my country of birth, and I love losing myself along its large rivers and smaller waterways, but the cramped greyness of this place can be fairly suffocating. I miss the open roads and the sense of space. I miss the untamed rivers with their unknown and exciting species. I miss the soaring birds of prey and the dust on the trail. I miss the loud and lonesome whail the mile-long freight trains would let out in the dead of night. I have to go back…

Gijs van Straten