Ime female gar tend to grow larger faster then males do. Atleast when it comes to shortnose gar, IDK if it's the same with all gar but I would assume so. When ever I caught em from the river the males rarely got to 3ft while the females can reach 4ft+ from what I've seen, that and the females always seemed to be much thicker then the males were.
Lol most ppl here would consider them a nuisance. They spawn in the hundreds around here, that and if ya have gar in the area nothing else will bite out of fear of getting eaten by the gar. I find that using bubble gum on the end of a lure's treble hook to be the most effective method of catching them, their teeth tend to get stuck in the gum long enough to set the hook. One thing I've noticed with wild gar is that they won't immediately try to swallow their prey, they barely grasp it by the tail end with their teeth and slowly try to swim off with it rather then trying to eat it right away. Even when ya set the hook they won't fight back untill ya get em almost onto shore, then it's an explosion of energy.
Nice, wish I had a pond that big lol or at all for that matter. Yeah we get shortnose gar that run up the big Sioux river during summer to spawn. They aren't the prettiest gar out there but I still like how they are pretty much a dwarf version of alligator gar. Still wonder why shortnose aren't out on the market tho.
