All that Kat Binder of Perrysburg wanted to do was go down to the Maumee River and do a little wading for catfish.
What she caught was a two-foot-long, two-pound skinny thing that looks like a cross between a northern pike and an alligator - a longnose gar.
"I caught the gar under the steel bridge in Waterville," Binder relates. "The park [nearby] is named Memorial Park, but we call it our fishing hole. We catch some nice catfish there.
"I waded out into the river midway to do my fishing - the shore is way too shallow this time of year."
Binder, an avid angler, said she was using chubs for bait and was surprised with the gar. "The gar sure is a beauty to catch. It was the highlight of my day, although a few cats would put supper on the table."
Gar have elongated snouts full of needlelike teeth. They are one of Ohio's lesser known but more ancient and primitive fish, tracing their roots almost as far back as the sturgeon and bowfin.
Typically they are uncommon to catch on hook and line because of their hard, bony jaws," says the Ohio Division of Wildlife in a life history. "[But] small live minnows fished up to one foot below a bobber can be productive; extremely sharp hooks are a must."
Most gar are caught incidentally, beginning in spring and into summer. Three species are native to Ohio, including the longnose, which is most common along Lake Erie and tributaries and the Ohio River drainage. Others are the spotted gar, which is limited to the Lake Erie drainage, and the shortnose gar, a denizen of Ohio River environs.
A fourth species, the alligator gar, is a southern species. It can grow huge, to sturgeon size - possibly to six feet or more and 250 pounds-plus.
Only the longnose is listed in official state fish records kept by the Outdoor Writers of Ohio. The top hook-and-line fish was 49 inches and 25 pounds, taken in 1966 in the Ohio River. It could be, however, that that fish instead was an alligator gar because of its abnormally large size for a longnose and because two records of alligator gar exist from the Ohio River.
The bowfishing record is 48 inches, 14.57 pounds, taken in 2001 from Brush Creek in Adams County. Normally, the adult longnose runs 24 to 40 inches and weighs one to seven pounds.
Despite the mouthful of teeth, gar are harmless except to minnows and other small fish on which they feed. They prefer to stay close to vegetation, like pike, and grab whatever swims by.
Gar prefer river systems and backwater areas, and the lower stretches of the Maumee and Sandusky rivers in northwest Ohio are prime gar waters.
Gar were more abundant historically, with their numbers likely in decline now because of increased turbidity in rivers because of agricultural and urban runoff.
The long, cylindrical body of a gar is covered with hard, diamond-shaped, nonoverlapping scales. They are olive to brownish on the back with white bellies, though fish from very clear water often have dark spots as well. Native Americans, he added, used scaled gar skins to fashion sturdy, hard-wearing knife sheaths.
Gar also have a fan club, the Gar Anglers Sporting Society, or GASS. It maintains a Web site, full of information on identifying and catching gar, at www.garfishing.com.
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Fishing report - While walleye and yellow perch continue to attract attention on Lake Erie, some area anglers have ventured to Lake Michigan and found the king salmon trolling worth the run.
Lee Boyer, a Whitehouse skipper who typically trolls for walleye on the Michigan side of Lake Erie, runs a boat for a few days out of Ludington, Mich., for a friend at Fin Power Charters. A Toledo-area crew tracked him down up north, however, and Boyer put them onto 16 kings, 10 of them 12 to 22 pounds, during a morning trip this week.
"It's pretty good," summed Boyer of the Michigan salmon scene this summer. The local fishing crew he guided included Scott Sterling of Monclova, Dan Raab of Whitehouse, Erik Welling of Toledo, Doug Sterling of North Baltimore, Pat Bergman of Toledo, and Corey Russell of Toledo.
They fished just seven miles off Ludington, principally using lead-core line, Wire-Divers, and Dipsy Divers with J-plugs and Spin Doctors with Strong Flies trailing behind. The latter rig is similar to the older dodger-and-squid rigs some trollers may be familiar with, Boyer said.
On western Lake Erie, the C-Can area north of Camp Perry appears to be a leading walleye hot spot at midweek, though earlier anglers were doing well between Little Cedar Point and the Toledo Ship Channel in shallower water. Waters west of North Bass Island and around Niagara Reef also were producing.
Yellow perch were taking shiners northeast of Ballast Island and northwest of Kelleys Island, and near Toledo along the Toledo Ship Channel, from the Harbor Light on out and a mile west of the Toledo Water Intake in 17 to 19 feet. On the Michigan side, perch were found off Luna Pier, about the second buoy offshore.
Marblehead fishing guide Jack Fry reports a 22 1/2-inch sturgeon, taken recently by his wife, Pamela, while they were perch fishing between Middle Bass and North Bass islands. He estimated the fish at 5 to 7 pounds and quickly returned it to the water. Later he correctly reported the catch to the Ohio Division of Wildlife's Lake Erie Fish Research Station at Sandusky, 419-625-8062. Sturgeon are listed as endangered in Lake Erie.
Last and not least, Dave Ray, of Edgewater Bait and Tackle in Point Place, is gathering details on two huge flathead catfish taken by unidentified bank fishermen tightlining nightcrawlers at Cullen Park. He checked both fish, one a 39 3/4-incher weighing 36 pounds and the other a 44-incher at a whopping 42 pounds.
"You could put a bowling ball in these fishes' mouths," Ray noted. Stay tuned.
First Published August 11, 2006, 9:46 a.m.
