bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

my dad was almost 55 when I was born so he was born in 1884. my dad loved to tell stories of his youth, they made good listening, and he was known to stretch the truth "a little". he used to tell of fishing trips where he ate alligator gar fish. of course I believed him. his story was that you only took ones 18 inches or less, split them open cleaned out the mud vein put some butter inside and cooked them in the hot coals. don't know how they took butter on a fishing trip in 1896. it was all good eating, he also mentioned alligator.
as I got older, I met a lot of guys from the south, when i told them his stories, they insisted to a man he was yanking my chain. on my 50th wedding anniversary I dined on batter fried alligator tails mmmm good. Friday I typed in "cleaning and cooking alligator gar" on youtube. plenty of links. the skin is like amour but if you learn how, cleaning fish from two to six feet isn't toooo difficult. the people making the tapes swore how good they taste. you know, there were other tall tales he told me that panned out.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

I recall using a hatchet to open the Garfish. We usually mixed the cooked gar with mashed potatoes and deep fried the potato balls, was very good. Grew up about a thousand feet from the Mississippi in the English Turn area below New Orleans.

dancers Loc: melbourne.victoria, australia

I will not eat fish of any kind....................

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Why, are those Down Under fish not tasty?

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

this Bud was not for you.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

My brother became a dad 6 years ago (twins) and his girlfriend has another one in the oven right now ( he is 60)!

brobill Loc: Fort Worth, Texas ( Haslet)

Best recipe for gar:
Split, clean, slather w garlic butter. Place gar on slab of redwood. Place in oven no more than 250 degrees for 4-5 hours till butter is running out and over the wood. Remove gar, throw it into trash and eat the board.

silver-rail Loc: harrisburg, pa

My DAD always told me that is the only way to cook them

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

well, we now know that's from someone who knows nothing. if you're not yanking out chain, check things out on youtube.

brobill Loc: Fort Worth, Texas ( Haslet)

Yep, you got it. Chain yanking. I confess.

timbambam Loc: Manhattan, NY

I had 3 alligator gar fish as pets. Got them from someone who was trying to kill them. Very little nasty water left in a fish tank with no filtration. Got the fish home cleaned up the 55 gal. tank they came with and bought some filters.
I had 5 fish tanks in those days so one more didnt matter. The gar were 15, 16 ,and 18inches long and aye 100 goldfish a week. My neighbors and their kids would stop by to watch feeding time. Never tried eating gar.

Pudge Factor Loc: Texas

One of my hands gave me a recipe for pickling gar, her Mom and Aunt and Uncle were big into gill netting gar. She attempted to gift me w/a gt. of pickle gar, but I declined.

alby Loc: very eastern pa.

same story with shad here along the Delaware River, eat the board, .... i have eaten a few shad. they are not "too bad" if you can put up with all the bones

chazz4623 Loc: Prairieville, La

If cooked and prepared properly, southern gar fish (there are several kinds) are quite tasty. They can be 'chewy' if not well cooked (slowly). I remember eating it as a kid, it has a rich flavor (very rich), some folks say TOO rich, but I found it pretty good. Just about anything not poisonous is good if you know how to prepare it and what to serve with it. I didnt look online, I already know about it, pleasant memories (for the most part)... We use shad for bait and not much else. lol

Pudge Factor Loc: Texas

A number of years back my Dad and I spent a few days shrimping in Galveston Bay and the Houston ship channel once, the former was a bust other than a net full of angle fish. We
put in at Morgans Point and I noticed a pick up w/boat trailer near the launch site and as we had the boat in the water and parked the truck near that other rig, as I walked back toward the boat I noticed the truck bed was full, almost level w/the rails, of gar was a small amount of ice on top. These guys were gill netting back in the slews that branch from the ship channel.
When I was a teenager belong to the Boy Scouts and our Scout Master and My Father worked for Humble Oil Co. and they were friends w/ the foreman of West Ranch, the location of Johnson Space Center now, and he allowed us to travel to our favorite place to go weekend camping. We camped near a bayou which had the pilling from and old bridge, and near this site was an Indian mound that we would dig around for relics. Near the bridge crossing was the remains of numerous gar that had been split at the belly to "shell out" the meat. These things were 4'-5' if not longer, it was quiet an experience.