It's completely legal to possess here, according to the regulations and also more than one person at the DNR and the head of the fisheries department (who know I have it because I told them). They even looked up the rules in their big book for me just to be sure.
I actually PM'd you not long ago about the gar legality thread being wrong on that account, but I guess the moderators never updated it. All species of gar are legal to possess in Missouri, including wildcaught fish, as long as they are taken in accordance to local fishing regulations, except for alligators which you must have proof of purchase for.
Florida gar don't range into Missouri, and it was caught out of the black river near Poplar Bluff. This is actually what most of the spotteds in this region look like, so there's absolutely zero reason to suspect a released fish, especially since no one around here sells florida gar. The closest I've ever seen them offered is in St. Louis which is nearly 3 hours away.
Next time I go out fishing I'll get some pictures of several. This fish is a standard spotted for around here, and gars in the U.S. vary drastically from region to region, so you can't go by what the pictures on google or the fish in your locality look like.
While I'm no gar expert, the only other fish it could be is a longnose, and the longnose around here are pretty standard grey with no pattern, or just some spots near the tail once they reach the size of mine, and they have a much longer snout.
