Cooking and eating Gar 

Caught one and cleaned it for the first time ever today. Watched one video (a different one), and that was enough to learn it quickly. Fried it up in a breading of flour, panko bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and parmesan. Made nuggets. It was absolutely delicious, and tasted more like chicken than fish. 100% my favorite freshwater fish.

I heard a gar recipe from an old timer. He says you nail the gar to a cedar plank, season it liberally with cilantro and lemon juice, and roast over an open flame for 45 minutes. You take the gar off the plank, discard it, and eat the plank.

When I was a kid in the Everglades they would skin the gar and then parboil it and the kids would comb the flesh away from the bones until there was a good size pile of the fish and then the flakes were rolled in a corn meal and made into fritters and deep fried -- we'd dip 'em in cocktail sauce that was heavy with horse radish and it was great.

Tim Farmer is an Emmy award winner and I enjoy every one of his vids. A motorcycle accident in 1984 severely damaged his right arm, so not sure if he lost the arm or just is not able to use it, not that it matters, when you watch his vids you never even notice. He is a super journalist.

Thank you so much for the video! It inspired me and my son to go catch one to try out and it was sooo good! We caught 2 spotted gar and fried them with what we had on hand. They were cut into nuggets and put in a bowl with lemon, Tex Joy, then taken out and rolled in pan cake batter(I know it was what I had lol), and fried. I was shocked at how amazing the meat tasted... Not fishy at all with a texture more like gator then fish.

I watched this literally twenty minutes after unexpectedly catching one. Thanks, this helped so much.

We have tons of Gar here in the river next to us. I was wondering about it. Thanks for the tips, ESPECIALLY about the eggs!

I do it a bit different, I chop the the head off and the end the end of the tail off, then I use tin snips right up the back, then run my knife under the skin on top, on both sides, then I just peel him back like an orange.

I love fishin I'm from beaverdam, Kentucky

Thank you. I learned a lot watching this.

Gar is really good! I mixed in gar, Asian carp, drum, wallet, and crappie all together as a joke at my last fish fry and no one had a clue! It was really funny cause people were talking about how nasty drum and carp were, but they didn't have any problem eating it! There first or second helping! My wife and I were laughing our butts off when we told everyone later!

Thanks for the tips. Really appreciate the video.

Another Awesome Video !!!! Regardless of the species or content; you always produce world-class videos ! Your quality work and dedication to producing the very best informative series of videos; keeps us fans always anticipating your next production. Hope 2018 is a wonderful year for you as well.

I like Nathan, he aint afraid to take a real bite.

I really enjoyed the video. Now I'm looking forward to those July and August trot line Gar. Thanks guys

3 men eating a gar but no beer. really?

You can grill gar in their shells. Just gut them and season the meat from the inside with some salt and lemon. When they are ready the shells separate from the meat easily. They make great fish tacos.

Thanks for the great video!

glad to know that if i am ever filleting a gar i can also build a bird house.

Grind him up. Add some potato and egg. Fried gar patties for breakfast.

Gar scales are great small game points on wooden arrows. Waste not want not. And it's cool to use something from a fishing trip to go hunting with.

I have heard that gar meat is good if you eat the meat while it is still hot, but gets tough after it cools down. I have never caught any of them, but wanted to know how to clean them to eat and thank you all for showing us how to do it.

Here in central tx we have found quite a few large gar scales in Indian campsites while hunting Arrowheads. We assume they were used as arrowheads due to the shape, and how sharp they are and super light weight, perfect for an arrowhead. I have never found large quantities like where one was cleaned but maybe half a handful.

Great video

Very well done video, gentlemen

Gar tastes excellent IMO!

Oh damn! Those scales are crazy!

chop the gar into 4" pieces with a hatchet. then use a fillet knife to cut on the inside of the scales and the meat and bone will come out. remove the guts. pan fry or deep fry with the bone in. works great and is 10 times faster.

wow great stuff

That looks soo good

We catch these up in northern Michigan at my household and cut the meat into bits for a sort of "popcorn chicken" deep fry. That meat isn't bad, but the work for processing is definitely an effort... Wonder if it tastes any different this way.

Skinned a TON of these once, old friend had gotten into bow fishing and didn't wanna waist all that good meat... So we started with your method and very quickly moved to a skill/circular saw, to replace the snips. Set it down low and your ready to go. (eyeglasses and face mask suggested) but with the skill saw you'll make quick work of them. actually was decent flavored meat to my surprise.

caddo river Indians used to use there scales as arrow heads

Gar is definitely good to eat, if anything, it does not have enough of a fish taste. I only shoot gar that are 3 ft + due to the low yield of meat. I do think I am going to try to make jerky out of it next year. The consistentcy of the meat lends itself to quality jerky. Has a more salmon like texture, kind of like a spoonbill. Next, I want to see them try to eat a grinnel.

Thanks for the cleaning tutorial. That's a baby, don't come to my area- they get big here and everyone calls them trash fish :) Was talking to dad today on the way back from fishing. I said they can't taste bad, they're a predator fish, and fish taste like what they eat. Caught and returned three today, going to get one tomorrow to try eating.

There's a lot of these in the backwoods of my town here in Florida. You can see them near the surface. Pretty big ones too. I can never catch them though lol.

I ate one in Villahermosa Mexico last week. They are called Pejelagarto there. They catch them, gut them and shove a stick in their mouth to use like a handle then throw them on a grill. They do this right by the river on the road from Villahermosa to Tacotalpa and sell them to people driving by. The skin peels off easy after it is cooked. The meat is firm and very tasty. I will try to catch one here in TN and see if I can cook it that way.

watch at 0.5 speed for drunk fisherman

tim said merry christmas at the end

I live in south Texas and have been eating it since I was a child. To me it tastes like chicken mixed with fish. Try some lemon or lime on it fried, with a tall glass of Sweet tea or beer....mmmm, good eating man.

thanks for posting this. I have a ton of spotted, longnose, shortnose, and alligator gar at my place on the Brazos river here in Texas. They're all around my dock mostly at night. Knowing that they are good eating on top of being a menace to other fish is a win-win to kill as many as I can. I just got a bowfishing rig and look forward to taking tips from this vid!!!!

About to find out! Cooking up a Gar I caught a few months back (kept in the in the freezer) right now. And I didn't use a fishing poll. Or a bow. The thing was swimming in shallow water, it was about 4 feet long! I ended up wading in behind it in about 2 feet of water, and I just tackled it with a net and a pair of gloves. :D

Let's put on our life jackets and go get us one, other guy, whatever 😂🤣😂

Fiskas all steel scissors and the EMT Shears work great for this skinning job

LOL, me and my cousin caught bunch of spotted gar on lake table rock. We pulled up under a bluff one day and they were spawning in about 4 ft of water. I have never seen anything like it. There would be a huge 3-4 foot female with about 30 males swarming her. Well we cleaned some and I took it home. I fried it up and it was tough as hell! Didn't taste too bad you just couldn't chew the stuff up. There is supposedly a good sausage recipe for them but I'll stick with panfish for the table.

I love gar

I have lived on Lake Palestine in east Texas for 10 years now. There are a lot of needle nose gar as well as alligater gar in this lake. Heck, there are alligaters here too, but I have yet to see one.

Nathan was dying to get a piece of that gar.. lol looks good tho.

that water looks so calm. i'm used to the ohio river current sweeping my float half way across the river

man thats alot of work.. come to dale hollow lake if you want to get some big ones. nice vid

I could never eat a gar for the same reason many people won't eat a horse or a dog, but interesting video :) thanks for the upload

"We killed that one in self defense!" LOL

nice job

It seems to require a tremendous amount of chewing. But props to these guys for eating outside the box.

My son has been bugging me to do a gar triple C After seeing this it's a done deal

I've heard that too that you have to eat them hot, but I go some several years ago and there was too much for one meal and I ate some later and it was fine.

Can you keep the head and scales, as well as the fins?

Impressive. I think we have the same bow.

"Look at that gaping hole" Seems I heard that in another movie I watched once.

put it on a grill and it will pop right open after about 15-20 mins... then you just pick away at the meat... its mushy but has a good flavor

Thx you

An easier way to clean the gar is cut the head off and the tail. then cut down the bottom of the gar in the middle. Pull out the guts and then start pealing away the skin off the muscle. Slide your fingers back and fourth between the skin and meat and it will come right off. You may need to use a knife every now and then to get it all separated but it works. Did this for my first gar and didn't even know it would work. :) All I used to cut it open was a multipurpose knife and used the saw. No issues at all :)

It's so easy to clean a gar fish y'all make it look hard lol that's all I catch but much bigger 4,5,& 6 feet but I like the small 1's also and I have never known the eggs to poison me I touch them all the time

I have heard gar taste awesome i caught a needle nose gar a few days back but i didint have a cooler with me so I hung it up so i can get its skull.I just need to find out a good batter recipe

We had one as a pet and released it

where i'm from, the only longnose gar that are that skinny are little one foot long babies. the average are like three and a half feet and eight pounds, and about six pounds of the fish is nice white meat. also, this guy showed you how to avoid the eggs. in my opinion, the juice is worth the squeeze for sure.

I have caught 3 spotted long nosed gar in Oklahoma and prepared them as you showed. One was close to 20 pounds. One around 8 pounds and one small one in the 3 pound range. All of them the meat was so full of cartiledge It was like chewing a piece of grissle trying to find some meat. Basicly not edible?????

450 degrees? I will make sure I wait to go gar fishing until it is 450 degrees out XD

great!

Спасибо

I just caught a young gar fish....... Cleaned it like you guys fried it........ It don't taste like fish and it is tough meat..... No thank you....... I will never eat one again...... Thanks 👍 for the video guys 👍

I read today that Gar meat is best when you grind it and make patties with herbs and spices mixed in.

Yes

i fish for gar fish alot.and my fav way to cook my gar fish is on a grill raped up in foil.with a bunch of rabit food on top like onions pepers wat not.but wen i fry it i find it makes som of the best fish sandwitches.ul eva have. but you can also smoke it the meat like i do with my big gar fish i ceach.my 2 biggest gar fish was a 6 foot 3 inch gata gar and a 5 footer.

Years ago we use to go out and catch gar and yep they were hard to catch..dad always used twine to catch them with..and I want to say it was the gar that I was always told that after you cook it while it is still hot and it started cooling down it would start to "bleed'" and per say turn back raw...that is what I was always told...I know I loved the tasted of all fish and I did NOT know you couldn't eat gar eggs..I think we eat the eggs out of all the fish that we catch..I love fish eggs..but i guess we didn't eat gar eggs..lol but I sure didn't know they were poison..I know when we would clean them..we would rip them down the belly from the head to the tail and then pull them out of their "shell"

Lay it on a large board and cut into chunks,1-1.5 inches long with a heavy machete or corn knife and then using a thin short filet knife cut around the inside edge of the hide,remove hide and filet the loin area away from the ribs.Walla !

I’m gonna trust you I can catch a lot of these up here my way we always throw them back or throw them in the trash, but go cook them up till turns out

just come in from a trout and black bass fishing trip on the meremac river in mo. had more fun catching the gar than the trout. we used 2lb. test and still managed to get 3 in the boat over 2 ft. long next trip we will be bringing our catfish rigs with 20lb test. good tasting fish. I did break a pair of scissors cutting the hide.

Well that's how we like to cook our fish. We catch it, clean it, and cook it. I don't see how it affects you, so leave it alone.

You guys try using rope to make a hookless lure for gar?? Great video on RU-vid showing how well it works.

Also the high levels of potassium in these fish. Around 298 Mg

I always just put the cast iron in water and I didn't see any difference. I mean it is a metal. So I don't know if the seasoned means anything. I could be wrong. I always scrubbed it down an dthen spray it with some grease and put it away. They can't beat cast iron.

Had some gar and it was deep fried. The meat was dry and very mile in flavor. Reminds me of kingfish. White and meaty. Next time I'll probably try it prepared another way though.

It's interesting that the gar has such a tough hide of scales. I wonder if the hide compares closer to that of a snake or perhaps, in some ways, to an alligator. I know you can whack a gar with a machete and if you don't hit it right you might not even cut into the fish. You could even hit a gar with a boat propeller and not even hurt the fist. A gar's hide is like a leather/steel glove. Is it any wonder that most people never tried to eat a gar?

He´s coming right at us!

so hungry

Lol 450 degrees? Were you fishing with satin

I was told by a Seminole they used to lay gar whole on hot coals and the skin would split while cooking. Since then I've found campfires with charred gar carcasses in and next to them. Anyone know anything about this?

every fish battered and fried tastes good lol

I bet this would make a great tartar.

You can see the rust on the scissors.

Just caught one yesterday. What a rush

Well yall' have a good time eating your fish you hear!!

Yea

It looks similar to snakehead meat, just harder to clean. Thank you for the video. Now that I know how to clean them, they are on the menu....

Hey I caught One tonight went for late night crappie but Garr's were on the move. So I decided to give it a shot very nice size fish . Tim buddy hit me up some time I'd really like to do some fishing with you some time

EZ catch just use tiny tiny trebles. Tiny circle hooks or use some kind of double jig in a y setup.

asian are great table fair. i preffer them now over catfish. i do want to try gar but didnt catch any this season. im watching the vid. thanks.

How is it 450 degrees and just right

Damn I have this fish as a pet. How did I end up here?