Claim: Photographs show an 8'10", 327-lb. alligator gar caught at Broken Bow Lake in Oklahoma.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2007]
Alligator Gar.....in Oklahoma Okay, this is why people just disappear from the lakes in
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Origins: Most hunting/fishing photographs depicting potentially record-setting catches seem to get matched up with inaccurate and exaggerated descriptions of when, where, and how big by the time they start showing up in forwarded
The text inset into the photographs (and reproduced in some of the
entry (and
A Dallas Morning News article on the catch included an account by the two men of the alligator gar was taken:
on other rough fish species. Parks and Reihn have found rough fish weighing as much as "We'd been seeing some pretty good alligator gar in the area, but we decided to move to a different spot and try for long-nosed gar," Parks said. "As we were getting ready to leave, a big fish rolled behind the boat, and we decided to make one more pass." The archers had traded the retriever reels and heavy line they prefer for big fish for spincast reels used to pursue smaller gar species. Bowhunting for fish requires specialized tackle. Riehn and Parks used an electric motor to ease their boat through the area where gar were surfacing. Right in front of the boat, a huge fish rose from the murky depths like a breaching submarine. Both archers saw the gar at the same time. They shot simultaneously, and both arrows struck the fish right behind its gills. Parks said he was worried about being able to land the huge fish on spincast reels. His biggest fish before the Rayburn gar weighed about 175 pounds, and he knew the Rayburn fish was much larger. "The arrow placement was perfect," Parks said. "That really takes the fight out of a big fish. I still followed the fish with my electric motor for three different runs. It came to the surface, and Keith grabbed a third bow that we had rigged with a retriever reel and put another arrow in the fish." It was 15 more minutes before they gaffed the gar, which measured
On Aug. 4 [2005], they were hunting gar at one of their favorite spots, not far from the
According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, that state's record for an alligator gar is an
Last updated: 11 January 2008
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