Just thought this may be of interest so I grabbed my camera while I was cleaning fish this morning. Only caught a few white perch but had a gar that was JUST big enough to fool with imo. Drive a nail in the head to keep it stationary when you hit under the dorsal fin and along the back. I used a hachet because that's what I've always seen but the ones we would catch were 150+ pounds. I think I'm going to use some snips next time and just cut down the center. After you remove the strip from the back, take a knife and run it along the scales. They’re very tough and you won’t cut through them so stay on the scale side and don't risk losing any meat. This picture shows when I started. Here’s what you’ll end up with. You can roll it out. It's a big tenderloin-looking piece of meat. It is picture still in the scales after I'd run a knife along and separated the meat.
nice, I've never eaten one, but i have heard of people making gar balls with the meat. is it any good? is that how you cook them?
I've never had gar balls but want to find a recipe for later. We always cut it into steaks and threw it on the pit. I'm not a white meat guy but bar-b-qued gar is pretty white. VERY good flavor and almost melts in your mouth. Very easy to eat. I want to compare it to cotton candy in your mouth but obviously more substance to the texture. Back to the balls, I was hoping someone here may have a good recipe. I haven't even searched the net but plan to. My wife came meet me the other night while I was fishing. She made a run with me to check the lines/yo-yo's and we had a gar fish. I threw it back but she asked if they were good to eat so when I caught this one I figured I'd clean it and let her try it. I'm going to throw it on the pit for the Arkansas game. Just an apetizer though cause I am cooking squirrels for my secretary's son who comes watch LSU games with me. He used to pull against LSU but I brought him over to the good side. I'm waiting to hear if he'll be in from offshore, he's pretty sure he'll be in. He loves squirrels and the last hunt I made I did with intentions of cooking them for him.
Looking for recipes I found some. I was puzzled to see so many that called for using mashed potatoes in equal parts to the gar fish. I wonder what the origins for that were and what purpose they serve. While looking I also learned that the eggs are poisonous for humans. I wasn't aware of that. I found this video that is spot on and much better than the pics I posted. http://www.youtube.com/v/r16h3gWFtGs&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param
I dunno. I was trying for the Best All-Around but went on a duck hunt yesterday morning and didn't take our guns off of safety. :lol: true story.
There are some places neaby hammering them. I went with an old friend who has a good blind but we let his son hunt the good blind and us old farts took the one in front.
You skin that fish well. Every gar I've ever snagged stunk to high heaven so I never brought one back. How did it taste?
I facked it up. I did something different and it turned out a bit too chewy. I was pissed because I hadn't eaten any since the 80's and was looking forwar to it. I caught another one last week but it was too small. Well, actually the one in the pics is a bit small but last week's fish was even smaller.
