Hello there, I am brand spanking new to this website, but have been freshwater commercial fishing in FL for 5 yrs now, and selling bait for 3 yrs. Honestly, in all my time catching shiners and freshwater grass shrimp, Ive had first hand experience with gar and there eating habbits cause most of the time Im catching in my net after they have just about scared all the bait away. When I bait shiner, I tend to keep dead baby shiners on hand at all times in order to diffure any gar in the approximate area from impeading on my hole and scaring all my potential bait away. A good friend of mine who has kept an alligator gar at home in his tank for years has always fed small farm raised shiners to his gar and has never had an issue eating. You can pick up small or medium farm raised shiners at bait shops for around 8 dollars a dozen and that will last a week. I would feel the gar out on weather or not he is a lazy eater, or an aggressive eater by puttin a dead and live shiner in the tank at first, and once you have figured out how he eats, continue the feeding once a day the same way and he should be fine.. I hope this information was helpful
i love the gar forum