Keith Dees and his son Huntley with the brand new Alabama state-record alligator gar. by way of Facebook
The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources licensed an enormous alligator gar as a brand new state file final week. The large gar was caught on Thanksgiving Day by Alabama angler Keith Dees, who was fishing along with his 15-year-old son, Huntley, as a part of their annual vacation outing on the water.
The chew was good that morning, and the 2 anglers had boated almost 20 fish—a mix of largemouth bass and redfish—within the Raft River, which is a part of the bigger Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. Suddenly, Keith hooked into one thing heavier. The fish slammed his Jack Hammer chatterbait, but it surely took him and his son half an hour to determine what was on the opposite finish of his line.
“I thought another big redfish hit,” Keith stated in an interview with The Call News. “I was reeling as fast as I could. As it went by, I could see something big underwater, but [I] had no idea how big. We just followed the fish with the boat because I wanted my $20 lure back.”
Keith was utilizing a medium-action baitcaster setup lined with 15-pound check, which is ideal for largemouths and reds, however not fairly heavy sufficient for a large gator gar. He patiently labored the fish they usually adopted it with the trolling motor because it made one run after one other.
“For 30 minutes we didn’t know what we had,” Keith continued. “The fish took line, but never left about a 200-yard circle. Finally, it came up to the surface to gulp air. We went nuts when we saw the size of the fish. But we still had no idea how big it really was.”
Two hours into the battle, Keith and Huntley observed the gar was tiring. But they didn’t have a web large enough to deal with the fish, in order that they took a stiff plug-casting rod and a large hole hook and long-established a makeshift gaff.
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“With the fish swimming alongside the boat, Huntley takes my $500 custom rod, and hooks the fish,” Keith defined. “I figured the rod would break, but the fish flopped sideways and then before going down hovered at the surface.”
That gave the 2 anglers simply sufficient time to shortly get a rope across the gar’s tail so they may roll it into their bass boat. They referred to as an Alabama recreation warden to be taught if it was authorized to maintain the fish. The warden informed them it was, however now they needed to determine what to do with it.
“Where can someone put a 7-foot-long fish?” Keith requested. “We brought it home and put it in an old swimming pool to keep it alive.”
Realizing that the gar was a possible state file, Keith and his son drove with the fish to a licensed scale at Orange Beach Marina, the place it weighed 162 kilos. Then they introduced the fish and the state-record paperwork to fisheries biologist Tommy Purcell, who confirmed the species. The state-record gator gar measured 84.5 inches lengthy with a 35.5-inch girth.
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The fish replaces the present Alabama state file of 151 kilos, 9 ounces. That file was truly a tie between two gar that have been caught from the Tensaw River in 2004 and 2009. The present IGFA all-tackle world file for the species is a 279-pound monster that was caught from the Rio Grande in Texas by angler Bill Valver in 1951.
“I think anything that draws attention to the Delta is a positive,” Keith informed the state company after his file was licensed. “The Delta is an extremely special place. My son has won a [Bassmaster] junior world championship, state championships, angler of year, and it’s made him an extremely versatile angler from growing up on the Delta. It’s just a neat, neat place.”