# Garfish: What's the skinny?



## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## Nativeman (Sep 6, 2005)

Very small hooks, a float with the line at the depth of the school and pieces of bread for bait, use bread crumbs to draw them it.

Cheers


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

small long shank hooks, tiny bit of bread and no weight (if possible). cast out, let the hook/bait sink to where the fish are then slowly retrieve - keep the line moving slowly as the gars seem to like chasing after a moving bait. needless to say very light line is also needed

they're bloody hard to hook though - those mini beaks seem to really get in the way of a hookup


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## Guest (Nov 13, 2011)

Quill or similar small float running on the main line so that you can adjust for depth. Size 10 or 12 long shank hook baited with small pieces of prawn or white bread made into pudding no bigger then a pea. Smaller is better. I would normally fish with two hooks on droppers. Berley with bread, bran, anything to bring them in but make it sparse as they will guts themselves and not touch your baits. Some bits of crust floating on the surface are really handy to indicate that they are around as they flick on the surface... It's possible to get away with incredibly light leaders and line as they have no teeth and will dance all over the ocean if caught on light gear. They really are like mini marlin. But beware the stonker bream that follow up the trail and snaffle the little baits!! Then there is a test on hand!


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## bazzoo (Oct 17, 2006)

I use Daveys method , with just bread rolled into a small ball and only on the tip of a very small long shank hook , no weight , no float, and very thin line and when you reach the depth of the school draw the bait towards you very slowly ., once you catch one you will find it easy to get a good few


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

My tackleshop owner imported a few rigs that he reckons he used for gar in Turkey as a kid. They're like a miniature cat of nine tails, made of some sort of slightly hairy string. The theory is that the gar strikes at the slowly retrieved lure (for want of a better word), then the small denticles (?) on the gar's bill snag in the strings, and he's all yours. I haven't managed to have one in the yak when I've seen garfish around, but it's an intriguing idea.

I've caught a couple just traveling through a school of them, they spook and unlucky ones jump right into the yak (not a reliable technique).

Apnearabbit had some nice fresh ones yesterday - Sigong?


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## kayakone (Dec 7, 2010)

All this good advice remind me of catching mullet in Northern NSW coastal streams when we were little kids (which is a long time ago) - Tweed river, Cudgen Ck; and Mooball Ck. Not even sure if it's a year round thing, but we got them in August - our annual holidays. We made a ring of light line around a 10 cm round shaped piece of coolite foam, and attached 5 cm pieces of light line and fly hooks around it. The fly hooks were baited with dough, and the burley was a few breadcrumbs.

I can still remember the excitement of several hookups at once, and the fight to land up to 2 -3 mullet on 2 - 4 lb mainline....and the delicious feast of fresh mullet! I don't know, Red, if this works here, or if it is legal nowadays, but it was great fun for little kids. The gar you're after are probably more widespead.

I don't think you can do better than give kids outdoor experiences like this (providing, as you say, there's a 'fun factor'). I know I treasure those times to this day, and hope it instills in many kids an appreciation of the outdoors and a spirit of adventure. From these days I grew a strong love of wild places...beaches, surf, bush and mountains, and all before anyone was talking much about conservation.

It is surely a healthy thing for young, middle aged or senior people, to derive great entertainment and excitement from such a simple thing as fishing.

Trevor


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

Gar are great fun, jump out of the water with great acrobats about as close as I'm going to catching a Marlin. :lol:

Use Squid, as it stays on longer than bread, 2lb mono hand line, small hook, preferably with no sinker (much easier to cast with a hand line), keep the line tight cause they'll get off a lose line.


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## wokka1 (Jan 31, 2011)

1


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## scater (Nov 24, 2007)

Small poppers ridiculously sharp trebles, and a degree of arse:


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## solatree (May 30, 2008)

leftieant said:


> Gents (maggots) are the gun bait but I hate using them!


Yep - maggots are the go. Great little live baits. Not sure what Leftie is worried about. Sold commercially in SA to save you having to breed them yourself.








=


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## anselmo (Aug 26, 2008)

Word of warning

When you land a gar the scales come off everywhere andit will promptly empty its bowels

Just a warning in case red-jr is funny about that kind of thing

oh and in answer to your question, #12 LS hook with red floss wrapped on it (fly fishing made simple)


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

I'll go with scater, we get them in numbers in patonga creek and I always manage a heap on small poppers.

When you do get them Red, Butterfly them and then crush with a rolling pina few bread crumbs in the pan and instant garfish cutlets. That one curitsy of Nan and the depression 

Cheers Dave


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## granpop (Mar 23, 2007)

One other thing Red - they love a bit of fish oil in the burley and in the pudding bait. a bit of an oil slick on the water and you can see their beaks weaving through it.
Cheers

Dave


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## billpatt (Apr 12, 2010)

The guys that fish for them around Lota use a float set (the float is a big heavy thing that they can cast a long way with), with a small hook and tiny piece of squid.

As you know they are great to eat, but with the macks only 2-3 weeks away when the southerlys arrive, they are a killer trolled bait, especially for the spainards which taste better than the gar.


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## Zed (Sep 18, 2006)

I might have asked this before, but are garfish, ballyhoo/halfbeaks? I've never caught one or seen one alive. They come as brined, and rigged baits as far as I know. Ha.
If so, I never knew they were eaten themselves. I thought they were turned into bigger game.


> especially for the spainards which taste better than the gar.


Are they oily like a sardine?


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## Guest (Nov 14, 2011)

yep Zed one and the same. There are a couple of different varieties in Aus but they are essentially the same. Nice sweet white flesh, not oily at all. But only small fillets due to their size.


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## Beekeeper (Aug 20, 2011)

Garfish
There are lots of garfish&#8230; the biggest I've ever seen or caught were from Mullaloo Groyne in West Oz when I was there on a three year posting with the RAAF. Two foot bloody six inches long! (75cm) About 2.5 inches deep and 1.25 inches across! They seemed to be rectangular in section, their bones blue and the flesh scrumptious! 
They were caught using a big Jarrah (West Oz timber) float with a ¾ inch hole bored across to hold berley and 1/8 inch vertical hole for the line to go through. A solid ring stopper either end of a metre long nylon line allowed the float to run up and down&#8230; below that came a trace with as many hooks as you wished to use&#8230; these loaded with gents or maggots. It took me a long time to resort to using the little twitchy buggers, but the gar were worth the effort of breeding them (and the arguments about keeping them in the freezer).
For those gar, rather substantial hooks were needed, and definitely long shank, loaded with several gents. 
The berley was a mixture of bran and pollard with a liberal amount of the then legal to have whale oil. Apparently the discard oil from Kentucky Chicken outlets served as a good substitute. The slick from the whale-oil could be seen spreading out away from shore when the tide was right, and the gar could be seen flicking in it as they homed in.
They also did the mini-marlin dance, and it looked pretty spectacular when several of your mates caught them at the same time.
I know that most of you will think I'm bull-shitting about them, but I didn't believe the length of these until I actually saw them&#8230; never heard of such monsters!
Back at Redcliffe you get a few types&#8230; snub-nose, long beakies and mid-beakies&#8230; I'm not ruling out others that probably turn up as well, but one lot comes in a fairly substantial size, although not nearly as big as the West Oz lot.
Berley up with bread-crumbs as needed, but don't fill them up with it&#8230; they have to be hungry for your bait.
Around a No 6 Aberdeen hook is suitable for the bigger lot, with your choice of bait&#8230; I've used small pieces of prawn or dough/very soft bread successfully, (never thought of squid, but the toughness of it should make it last) and of course the smaller the fish targeted, the smaller the hook used. Tiny Fly hooks are not recommended as they take forever to remove if hooked in the wrong spot&#8230; long shanks are much more easily removed.
It's funny, lots of fish won't bite if any of the hook is seen&#8230; but not gar&#8230; they just want that bait!
I prefer a long slim plastic float with plastic ring that slides up its length so the length of trace can be altered quickly&#8230; also a little sinker can be inserted inside the float to sit it upright in the water.
The rest is up to you, the fish, and your reaction time.
The biggest gar, of course, are the easiest to prepare for the table, and I like to butter-fly fillet them, which takes time and dedication, but I reckon it's worth it. My preference is battered, but bread-crumbs are OK too.
When they get too small and finicky for that, I use a method that was suggested to me many years ago, rolling them with a bottle! 
Scale, gut, head and tail them&#8230; slice them right to the tail-end&#8230; spread them belly down with belly flaps wide-spread&#8230; roll a bottle along the back very firmly until the fish is completely flattened out. 
Place them back-down in a pan with smear of cooking oil (or just on the hot-plate lightly oiled) cook until flesh goes white, flip over and cook the crapper out of the bony side! 
Pick up and eat! Absolutely scrumptious! You can crunch straight through the bones if cooked thoroughly enough! 
If, however, you're a bit of a sook and averse to crunching through the bones, you can remove them easily enough after rolling the bottle over the fish&#8230; then you have all the back-bones to get rid of. 
Big tip! Don't cook the belly side first! The belly flaps come together and buggers the whole scheme. Then you can't cook the stuffing out of the back-bone. Cook the back first and they stay flat&#8230; way to go!
Try this method at a barbie&#8230; there'll be a line-up waiting for them to be cooked! But! Keep some aside for yourself or you'll miss out! and Zed, they're not oily.
Cheers, Jimbo


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## goanywhere (Feb 22, 2011)

In South Oz gents (maggots) are the preferred bait. Ones bred up on old fish carcasses are the best. The next best bait is bread soaked in a bit of sardine oil made into little half-pea sized balls on size 10-12 hooks under a berley float. If they are really thick you can do away with the float, 'cause they can cause tangles if you get double headers.

At night dabbing with a net and strong torch is fun and can yield hundreds if the conditions are warm and still.


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## andybear (Jan 15, 2006)

I used to use the berley cage type of float, when I lived in SA. Quite productive, stuffed with bran, bread and some maggot paste. Maggots are best bait I reckon, especially the pink ones.......feed em some food colouring for a couple of days..

Cheers all andybear


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## HardPlastic (Jul 2, 2007)

Wow. Got heaps out of this post myself. Hey Red I have just discovered by accident and necessity one day that fresh raw puff pastry works a treat on the hook instead of bread. You can put it back in the fridge when you're done too. Stays on the hook for ages. Of course you still use bread or stale bread to burley up.

Cheers

Greg


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## grinner (May 15, 2008)

hay red, had a flick thru my files and discovered i have caught one gar in 2 years , on a size one hook with a yabbie as bait.

here it is at peel island.

mate often see them in horsehoe bay.  always top of the tide and always on dead calm days.

the pro fisher i often see at the ramp reckons they are his most valuable catch.

he tells me the garfish in blah blah sauce with salad at "cha cha cha" brisbanes second dearest restuarant is $70 . (he'll still sell you a good handful for a few bucks)

so they must be mighty tasty little suckers.

thanks to all the posters , mite have a crack


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## Junglefisher (Jun 2, 2008)

We used to catch them in WA, but yeah... much bigger than the eastern ones.
Bit of prawn on a size 10 hook under a float and berley up.
Have struggled to catch them in the east. Longtom are mucho easier to catch - just troll an SX40 fast.


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## remora101 (Sep 6, 2008)

Must give this a go with the kids on the weekend - thanks for all the pointers


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## Beekeeper (Aug 20, 2011)

Gar again
I checked out gar on the internet to confirm my 2ft 6in gar caught in WA, and the biggest recorded, according to the scientists is about 40odd cm.
This tends to make me out to be a liar, but the truth is that at certain times of the year, 75cm gar are or were caught off Mullalloo Groyne by many West Oz anglers.
When I was an LAC carpenter in the RAAF Base Pearce carpenter shop, a newly posted in Corporal Kevin Johnson began fishing at the above mentioned Groyne. He came to work on the Monday and told me he caught 2ft 6in gardies. I immediately completely disregarded any further fishing news he produced. I'd lived by the sea and been around fishing in most aspects for about thirty years by that time, and had been informed by my Dad who at one time had fished commercially, that the biggest gar caught in Australia was about 18inches long.
As far as I was concerned the good corporal told whopping great porkies, and was not to be believed on the subject of fish and their lengths.
I happened to fish the aforementioned Mullalloo Groyne for other fish one day, and damn me if a bloke using a big jarrah float and maggots didn't catch a whopping great gar&#8230; I checked it out, and bugger me, it was 2ft 6in long!
All this time, Johno had been telling the truth, and I'd rejected his fish stories out of hand!
Not to be out-done, I rigged up and used a piece of cheese from one of my sandwiches, and hooked and landed one of these huge beasties! The bloke beside me was really pissed&#8230; "I go through the pains of breeding these bloody maggots, and you put a bloody piece of cheese on and catch them as well!"
I love it when that happens, eh?
Now, according to the scientists, there is a whole bunch of us, who, having caught these beauties off the Groyne, were potential world record holders for the humble gar if only we'd registered our catch details!
I don't know if I should associate with you guys anymore&#8230; I almost feel like Royalty or summink. I'll have to buy a plum so I can speak more posh.
Jimbo


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

Jimbo, at that size and with green bones, I'd be calling them for long tom (sometimes wrongly referred to as alligator gar) which are unrelated to garfish.


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## mudpat (Feb 21, 2011)

As a kid in Esperance (W.A.) we used to berley them up with pollard sprinkled on the surface. The water would go black with them and we would flick out small hooks with a tiny piece of mince attached. We would get them by the bucket and they were great tucker grilled on the BBQ. Some were definitely bigger than 40 cm. The ones in W.A. are bigger than any I have seen over here and far more prolific.
Used them whole on our squid rigs also as they were thin and did not cover the bank of hooks at the bottom.


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## Beekeeper (Aug 20, 2011)

sbd said:


> Jimbo, at that size and with green bones, I'd be calling them for long tom (sometimes wrongly referred to as alligator gar) which are unrelated to garfish.


Dave, if you saw these fish, you would never confuse them with long tom which have a long beak full of vicious teeth on both top and bottom jaws (?). Their beaks (single) were toothless, their bones were blue, not green, and believe me, they were gar.

I admit, the size seems unbelievable and my credibility questionable because of this, but 75cm gar are real!

I'm not pissed that you doubt me, just unshakable regard this fact.

Jimbo


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

Beekeeper said:


> sbd said:
> 
> 
> > Jimbo, at that size and with green bones, I'd be calling them for long tom (sometimes wrongly referred to as alligator gar) which are unrelated to garfish.
> ...


I believe you Jimbo, but there are miscreants about who insist that without a photo, it didn't happen ;-) . It's a remarkable feat to nearly double the Australian record, even more so that every year anglers are landing these beasts yet have not managed to get a pic up somewhere. On a hunt around the boards, even those who are making an ambit claim are calling their prizes at "nearly 50 cm" though strangely none of them manage to provide happy snaps of these monster gars.


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

RedPhoenix said:


> sbd said:
> 
> 
> > even those who are making an ambit claim are calling their prizes at "nearly 50 cm" though strangely none of them manage to provide happy snaps of these monster gars.
> ...


She's a dwarf.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2011)

On a matchbox boat.


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

patwah said:


> Bevan caught one a metre long


I'm surprised he hasn't shared some chestnuts here. He should have a mag with Jimbo.

I reckon you could catch gars on chestnuts, or maybe filberts. I like them with chit'lins.

I like anything with chit'lins.


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