“Canadian gar record is 21.2 lbs. The more I think about it, we very likely released the record today. Maybe not but it’s close!”
From Chrish Crete on Messenger…
June 2024.

My reply…
“I thought 21.3 lbs. yesterday, probably because that’s what’s needed to take it. Don’t regret the decision really, but it was close bud, maybe bigger? And I have a witness.”
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This years gar fishing was nearly non-existent. Away ice fishing and working back in March, the Ottawa Valley experienced some insanely seasonal high winter temperatures which had anglers boating and fishing on some waters as early as late February. Through the hot spell I remember receiving a message from my buddy Chrish telling me I might want to hurry home because there may not be a gar season by the time I get back.

I imagined during that winter heat what might happen is the shallows could warm up very quickly in some spots. Having driven by and seen the Ottawa River mid March at the upper sections, I knew full well there was little water in the river. A combination of that low level with the high temps I guessed it could potentially allow some fish an early spawn and some weeds to grow? When finally arriving home in May, I wasn’t really sure what to expect with any fishing, let alone gar.

Historically the first fish outings of spring are for either trout or crappie, and I chose the latter. Driving to the lake some ponds I had passed were already filled with lily pads and the buds in the trees had split to show leaves; something on a normal year in my area I wouldn’t usually see for another few weeks yet. Launching the boat the blackflies were vicious and thick! Normally I’d be ahead of them as well, by at least a week or three. Finally, the water temps in the back bays I like to fish crappie, well they were a full ten degrees warmer than usual for that May week. There were some crappies around but I’d missed the best windows for ‘em that I like.

So when it came time to go gar fishing, my youngest daughter home from University wanted to join. Launching into the Ottawa River the main current surface temperatures were actually pretty normal, maybe a bit cooler than some years?

No question though, temps were colder in the shallows. Just weird? Despite that crazy winter heat wave I’d heard all about, some had told me afterwards that the April climate dropped real frigid again, and the winds were rather relentless day in and day out. Chilled shit down is what it did, except the crappie lake I guess? As said, I was at the top of the world then, up in Grise Fiord working and chasing icebergs and home was a reality about 3000 miles south.

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But now that first of day gar came and I had my lucky charm Leah along. She is the most zen Gen Z child one could ever know. She’s truly an old soul, little bit hippie-like who just “vibes” with happiness and brings calm sweetness with her wherever she goes. So our morning in the Lund seeing hardly a fish while probing cool shallows much lower than normal depth for that time of the season, I didn’t feel the day as having much potential for gar but, I pleasantly had the right company to make it a great outing.

And then, nearing the end of our short tour, almost unexpectedly, alone out in some barren waters all by itself, I nearly drove on top of this one huge fish. Quick to cast that damn thing actually bit and in a flash I had the rod to Leah to play it. Unfortunately, she did right but just near the boat that gar got the better of me before I could reach it, and so it came off.

Swimming slowly away we reset quick and laid chase. Hundreds of times over have I hooked gar, it get free, not travel too far and stay up top, and I return to casting at it. Eventually they could snap again. Leah was excited in the sudden chase, me doing the casting trying my all to get that perfect bite reaction. And again, it bit!

This second time there were no mistakes. Leah reeled it in, I gloved up and grabbed the snout, easily removed the lure in water, held the swimming fish beside us while the boat was quick into auto-drive and headed closer to the shoreline for some pictures aboard.

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There have been a few entire seasons go by that a fish this big isn’t caught at all. At 54-inches a gar this size around here is a “mega” class fish and a potential record. I placed this one into a big net for which is barely use for gar, but keep in the boat incase curious for a weight or I just can’t safely grab the snout. The gar was 19lbs, 10ozs. That’s less than two pounds shy of the Canadian record.

Probably maybe, this one was in my top 15 biggest..? Leah was happy for me, she for herself, me for us, and this one first gar I told her could be the best of the season..? I remember feeling that the gar actually gave both a sense of relief and accomplishment. Basically, the rest of the spring was set for hunting bigger but if that didn’t come, who cares? I could just enjoy this incredible fish and memory I made with Leah while feeling 2024 coughed up a truly big, worthy mega gar. Pressure is off!

An entire month passed and the whole period was “gar”bage! Cooler temps, plenty north or east winds, near freezing overnights, cloudier days, consistent convection winds, just no fucking good at all. And at home, my to-do list for the house this spring was (is) longer than ever! Fishing days have been cut to about a third of what would be the normal, although I did manage a couple of good fun outings for trout.

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And with gar over that month I squeezed in just two days and two other very short few hour outings for a small handful of over fifty-inch fish. I enjoyed an overdue visit with Chrish one of those outings. What I peeped on the water didn’t really give me much of a boner for it though, the mojo was low and I often finished early. Just not feeling it this season! Really, the structure pic above was more titillating than that entire month of gar fishing.

What was cutting close to the last days I had available to fish the Ottawa, it was a Saturday when I got out for a bit and my notes here scratched, 50, 47, 47, 47. Remembering that, one fish in that bunch was a wreck. It must have been hit by a boat and the prop did a real number on its jaw. Truth be told, it was like a broken bone that had been completely severed and left held in position by the cartilage-like tissue of the gar’s gaping mouth. No, I’m not showing the pic of it.

That had been a shorter outing which showed promise for better days ahead, and so I reached out to Chrish. While on the water the Friday only a day before my busted jaw gar day, fishing was reported quite slow for him and some other gar hunters too. Again, afternoon convection winds wreaked havoc on warmth and visibility like they had been doing all season but, nearing the end of that day Chrish came across some bigger girls. Two he’d label “megas.” The Monday weather looking promising, we hatched a plan to skip Sunday and get together then.

A beauty, calm, hot morning I wasn’t used to not pulling the boat to the launch and got going in the truck a bit behind schedule while off in the wrong direction to meet Chrish. Finally rerouting and arriving to see him at the launch, Police cruisers were in the parking lot and a bunch of cops were standing on the dock staring at a floater. Helluva memorable way to start a gar day when you’re asked to launch slowly and make little wake to go around a dead human body.

I felt Chrish wanted to get after those big gar right off the hop. He’d seen ‘em, missed ‘em and his dick was hard to prick ‘em. Me on the other hand, a day is like a week is like a month. Plan it. Think it over. Strategy.

A couple of challenges these days for me with gar is, A) energy and motivation ain’t what it was a decade ago, and B) it seems more boats are getting into gar and most of ’em haven’t much a clue what they’re doing. They spook the Hell out of everything, cast at everything they see, everything in everywhere gets beat up now. Few people quietly hunt for the trophy, and instead slaughter the herds.

Myself, I like ’em all over fifty inches. Rarely cast at anything else unless the day is near done and I only want a little piece of play to ward off a skunking. Otherwise I leave ’em alone! If your best is a fifty that season, look for bigger! If your best is a 54 for the first fish on your first day of the season, you might not be hooking another gar for the year if you’re looking only for better. So, I asked Chrish leaving the launch that we go this way instead of that for awhile in order to best time things for our bigger fish chances at his mega fish spot. Wonderful thing about Chrish, aside from when a muskie is actively pulling on any line within his vicinity, he’s pretty easy going about everything else.

And so my idea ended up kinda okay and kinda sucky too! We spotted some big early gar over fifty and missed ‘em! Spooky pressured fish. We also left time for the day to warm up and more gar to show. It was just another one of those mediocre conditional and post weekend warrior assault mornings, but with promise. And so then come high sun earlier afternoon, all began to feel better.

Cruising in slow and quiet Chrish was on deck while I was on lunch break finishing up the last few bites of one gastro-gasmic chicken salad sandwich. About to lick my fingers Chrish calls out something about a “big one.” Like a “there’s the big one,” as his body language goes all crouching tiger hidden dragon and shit. Some many times we both call big fish then find out otherwise, so I didn’t exactly spring into war but did march up in good stride.

As I join him on the bow the fish he is after is just away on the move. Chrish had two, three, maybe even four casts in on it already, and he’d put the gar in motion. Once I arrived beside and spotted it 12-oclock positioned broadside to me, as the boat was turning to port side and kinda tractor beaming in on this gar I was surely like, “yeah man, that’s a big one,” but yet it didn’t scream mega. More to Chrish’s casting side he got another in while still in mid turn completing a boat 180 from how he’d initially approached. That gar was going by us now, it was leaving! “I want that fish, that fish is mine, that fish is mine Bunk!” But then when the bow squared up to follow in behind it and this big toothy was swimming directly out in front of us I saw the girth of her and was like “fuck that is a mega!” And I got in on casting to it too.

A fish on the run looking to escape is fair game, get it before it’s gone. More often than not bigguns give ya the slip and so I’ve never claimed any fish seen, only sometimes actually offered it to boatmates or at the right times given the cast to the other angler. Sometimes positioning comes into play and it’s made obvious who has the higher percentage cast. After one of Chrish’s next shots he called out to stay on it as he’d fouled up his lure, tangling it in some line. Me on the motor then to chase, either the second or third cast following, I hit that mega jackpot.

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A real solid gar I was pleased to just get it. I know Chrish would have been over the moon to have caught it though, I heard that loud and clear a few times. lol. The fish hit the bump board at 53-inches but with some exceptional girth, and curious about that, before releasing I said we should see what she weighs…

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Together Chrish and I did best we could to weigh the gar three times with different measure. The first weight in the net Chrish announced it bounced 24 pounds after quick net subtraction, and that’s when I was like… well, if it is it’s crushed the Canadian Record! But, I didn’t like the bounce, didn’t see the scale while concerned for the fish, didn’t overly like that it was a spring scale without ounces, and didn’t like that it was being weighed in a giant Big Kahuna net with too much margin for error. So I asked, have you got a sling or something like a cloth grocery bag in the boat? I’d cut a bag to make a sling in a pinch, but Chrish actually had a muskie cradle.

I’d been keeping the catch for a good long time in the water so it could breathe and stay well, all the while we also readied the cradle for weighing this thing proper. The fish was always in mind, and mostly out of the water for only a usual photo period. Those who fish gar know how well they tolerate time out too. Chrish first weighed that cradle and then we scooped the gar to see.

Well, the first go the scales tipped (minus cradle) to give a weight Chrish called out of 21 to 22 pounds. Didn’t see the scale myself, during that try the fish had started to slide out of the cradle so I managed it, then we repositioned and secured to make sure that wouldn’t happen again. The next and final attempt was the same weight. The fish was for sure a clean, still 21 pounds and more, but we for sure did not reach 22. The spring scale doesn’t measure ounces and I called it too close a weight to the current Canadian Record to risk killing it. I mean shit, you’re probably going to lose some weight on route to certified scale too, only to find out then we we’re an ounce or two short..? Hell with that! Decided I’d let it go. Chrish was on board, no argument. Out over deeper water a tired fish sunk slow to below into safety. The release video link here…
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A Canadian Record Gar??? The Release Video…
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Going by the old records over a decade ago, when they were back about 15 something pounds and then later 20.1, it’d be fair to say the 15-pound one myself or others in the boat broke that mark several times before it was up’d to the 20.1. At 20.1-pounds while fishing with Mikey Leeks I could have beat that too had a fish been kept. A gar of a minimum 20.25 pounds that one was. Since the current record was caught maybe like ten years ago now, my daughter Leah, my friend Christine and myself have all weighed fish to 20.5 pounds… I believe one of those was 20.25 pounds, would have to look again deep in the journals to see. Longest fish over the years has been 56-inches, a couple of 55.5’s and down but. Current Canadian record is surprisingly only 51.5-inches but, she must have eaten a duck or a skrat right before Steve Grail put a minnow in front its nose.

Anyways, this one I can for sure call 21-pounds at 53-inches and now the heaviest I have caught, that I know of..? There was that period of some years when those many fish we boated over 50 up to 55.5-inches were never actually weighed. This one is great and it was cool to peg it with Chrish as he has come to appreciate gar and the fishing very much as well. The catch wouldn’t have actually happened had he not found that pocket of them some days before. It’s as much his big catch as mine, honestly a mega shared. Spending the hours he does fishing them it’s only a matter of time before he catches her again at 54-inches and if lucky two pounds heavier. Then he’ll have “the” decision to make.

We finished out the day stroking a bunch of quick over-sizers. Hawk Tuah! Some sweet gar but the funny thing was, every one of them after the mega was kinda like a “huh, small.” I mean, just compare the girths between the mega and these other fish and you’ll understand. For big girls girth means everything!

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That’d be it for 2024. Not sure if Chrish tried again, not sure if he still might. This year we never really saw the same numbers of fish we’re accustomed to seeing. Not only that, there were many times gar just were not found hanging around old haunts. The water stayed cold in the river until late, despite how very shallow it was early on this season. Both Chrish and I still scratch our heads wondering if there just wasn’t much of a spawn this year or, had many of the fish already been shallow back in March and gone when we finally got to fishing? Another wonder is, maybe they just started showing up in better numbers after I’d called it a season? The water did stay quite cold until about the time I caught the mega. Whatever it was happened out there on the Ottawa River it wasn’t the norm, except, that I hoisted some more giants again and made gnarly garly memories doing it with daughter and friend. There’s no question that one day coming a new record will be kept, and if that’s a choice of mine to make, it’ll have to be well over anything already registered.

Bunk!
🙂