Hi everyone. So since my last post we’ve been doing a lot of fishing here in Port O'Connor. The catching has been intermittent though. No one, even those going out in boats are catching as much as they have in the past. The weather hasn’t been cooperating, specifically the wind. It’s been relentless and has been blowing mostly from the east which is apparently the worst wind for fishing. It also mucks up all the water around here.
But we have had some good days, the best being the one we were fishing on the pier here and we caught these 2 alligator gar.
We were shocked when Dave reeled in his first. We had no idea if they were good to eat or not so checked in with the RV park owners and they said yes. But they were surprised we caught it in the ocean, apparently they typically live in fresh/brackish water. Another local we talked to that day said that when there’s lots of rain, the gar get washed out of the rivers into the ocean….well that explains it, there’s been so much rain!
They’re called alligator gar for a reason, check out the snout and those teeth!
We figured catching the one gar was a fluke but a few hours later, I caught mine. I’d thrown out a fish head at the end of the pier and left the pole in a holder. I’d kinda forgotten about it since it wasn’t getting any action and I was fishing with my other pole closer to shore. But then a couple of hours later we heard/saw something thrashing out in the water and it sounded like a bell had gotten rung. This all happened in the area at the end of the pier where I threw out the fish head. Didn’t look like anything was on my line but it was slack so reeled it in and holy crap, another gar! We figured out that the ringing sound we heard was my pole hitting the light stand when the gar hit and thrashed. Mine was bigger and fatter than Dave’s, over 40”….so nah nah nah nah nah Dave :-)
So another thing they have in common with alligators is their armour. Yes armour! You don’t cut through it with any knife. Thank goodness for google where we discovered you get through it with tin snips. Works great and you end up with two huge fillets, not boney and it tastes really good, not fishy at all, firm in texture, exactly what we like. We’re on the hunt for more before we leave!
Two days ago we were back out on the pier fishing and Dave hooked into something REALLY BIG! But, it didn’t fight like a fish, just hauled straight in. At first we thought it was a hunk of garbage but it was a HUGE sea turtle, all covered in barnacles, it looked ancient. It’s head was about the size of two of Dave’s fists together and about 3 ft around. No way you can pull that up even in a net so he dragged in towards shore. Thankfully it fell off on it’s own because Dave wasn’t sure how he was going to get a hook out of it’s big beaklike mouth. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of it before that happened, besides the water was so choppy and murky it wouldn’t have been a good one anyway. Caused big excitement on the pier though!
We fished last night and right around dusk something big hit Dave’s line again. This time it put up a good fight, he managed to reel it in close enough to see it was a shark! We’ve caught small ones before but this one looked like it was 4ft long…so big! I was ready with the drop net but it got under the pier on Dave and then the line got snagged on on the supports and it snapped clean off. Dave whined about loosing it for the rest of the night! At the same time we were dealing with the shark, the other line he had in the water got hit by something large enough that immediately snapped that line. Another fisherman saw the pole bend and then go completely slack. Maybe sharks travel in pairs??? Who knows??
All these wierd and wonderful things we’ve caught have been in waist deep or shallower water. Kinda makes you think twice about swiming in the ocean (expecially murky waters) doesn’t it!?
Here’s some more fishing pics!