Yeah and it lasted for about all of about 3 months... The fish even today though is still one of the most brightly colored and contrasting Longnosed I've run across. Beautiful fish. Has little green in it now.. (It does pop up from time to time)
FLG and Snowy your looking at this the wrong way. Even if you can manage to find or obtain a fish from a locality that tends to have a particular coloration trait it does not mean that is what you will get out of it. It is very likely the red will just fade and it is done with. There are many things about coloration expression in gars that are just not understood. Diet, Genetics and environment are key but we do not know just how much of what affects what and how the inter-relationship of all of this plays out. I've spent quite a few years playing with various factors seeing how it effects coloration in these fish..
Afraid to say I think a good 10 years more of work might be needed before this is really understood to a basic level. Fact is wild fish are nothing like their captive comparisons and captive fish make poor comparisons to the wild form. Some things can be directly linked between them but some other things are just not. Coloration is one thing that just does not seem to cross between the two.