Alligator Gar....... Any good?

Decent flavor. Too many little bones make them hard work. Very very bony fish.

Had a guy from Cameron Parish cook me gar tenderloin nuggets once.

Made it taste exactly like fried chicken

Thanks for the replys. Figured there was a reason I had never had them.

These two dudes were catching them off the sea wall. No gaff hook. Used a pick axe to kill, gaff and haul them up the steps. Dual purpose tool. Worked fairly well.

We fish in Lake Verret, and my Old Man hates them wth a passion. He fly fishes with a bream killer mostly and they always frick with his bobber/cork and break his line. Never kept one. When we bring them in the boat he punts them off the side in spite

Its not bad at all. Number one way to eat them is garfish patties, I've also had it smoke and cooked in a roux gravy like a stew but a little thinner.

Hardest thing is cleaning them, I cleaned a couple before you tube came around with tutorials on everything and went by word of mouth, my dad never kept them. With that said look up Rickey Verret Best way to clean a garfish. That's a coworker of mines uncle in law, he fishes them when hes not shrimping. He has a very good video on how he does it.

quote:

---

Alligator Gar....... Any good?

---

Only if you know what you are doing. Martini can attest to this, but my cousin makes the absolute best gar-ball stew. My grandma used to make this and it was awesome, and my cousin, who used to be a chef, makes this every year around good friday i believe. My grandma didn't use recipes, she just knew how to do it, so my cousin just kept making it until he got it right. It's fantastic.

Garfish have a shite load of bones, and most people use a spoon or ice cream scoop to scrape the meat off.

ETA: Oh, and he uses regular gar (i think), not alligator gar. Don't think the taste is that different between the 2.

I think they are great. I will catch and clean one and bring it to my maw maw, she makes the gar balls. Great stuff.

It's a pain to clean them and it's a pain to scrape them, but it's rewarding. The meat is beautiful, white and flaky.

quote:

---

Decent flavor. Too many little bones make them hard work. Very very bony fish.

---

This is very true. Only way to make it worth your while is to catch large ones.

quote:

---

As a teenager we would catch them at a camp in Lake Pontchartrain, big ones.

---

My brother in the 60's spent the night out with some buddies at what we called "the point". It was just a drainage canal outfall at Academy Drive and the lake in Metairie but it had trails and was a cool spot.

They caught about 8 or 9 of them all over 6 ft, a couple about 8 ft. It was a memorable night in his teenage years.

They caught them using a wire noose through which a bait was dangled. When the gar took the bait, the noose would tighten. Supposedly gar couldn't be caught on a hook. Is that the way y'all catch them?