The origin of an alligator gar taken earlier this month by an Indiana bow angler has been positively identified as a stocked fish, likely one from a restoration program Kentucky started eight years ago.

 

“It looks like it’s one of our fish,” said Stephanie Brandt, a biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife.

The clues were a microwire tag embedded in the fish and the absence of a pit tag some other states use in combination with microwires. “By process of elimination and close proximity to our waters, that’s what it looks like,” she explained.

From the fish’s size – 63 inches long

and 55 pounds – she said it likely was a

10-year-old fish released in 2009 or 2010.

Kentucky has a partnership with the

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to restore alligator gar. They start with fry acquired from the Private John Allen National Fish Hatchery in Mississippi and reared at Kentucky hatcheries, before they are released into areas with suitable habitat.

The fish taken by the bow angler on the White River in southwestern Indiana was not large by alligator gar standards. There are reports of alligator gar weighing more than 300 pounds, but the International Game Fish Assoc. and the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of  Fame both list the world record caughton rod-and-reel as a 279-pounder, taken from the Rio Grande in Texas in 1951.

A 327-pound alligator gar taken in Mississippi in 2011 was not eligible for record consideration since it was caught in a commercial fisherman’s net.

Indiana is on the northern edge of historic range for alligator gar, so the fish taken here is considered a rare find. Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries biologists who regularly conduct surveys on large rivers haven’t found alligator gar in the last 30 years; common gar species in Indiana are longnose, shortnose and spotted.

According to Ken Schultz’s Fishing Encyclopedia, an alligator gar is described as having a long, cylindrical body covered with heavy, diamond-shaped scales. Two characteristics distinguishing alligator gar from all other gar species are a broad, flat head and two rows of teeth in the upper jaw.

Schultz writes that alligator gar spawn in the spring and early summer in shallow bays, and a female can produce as many as 77,000 eggs at once. Of the seven known gar species, the alligator is the largest, reaching up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and tipping the scales at up to 300 pounds (140 kilograms).

The menacing-looking behemoths are generally olive green or yellow and have a heavily scaled body. A tooth-filled mouth and wide, alligator-like snout give the species its name.

The freshwater giants may look fierce, but attacks against people are unknown. They can pose a passive danger, though – the fish’s eggs are poisonous to humans if ingested.

Adult gars have few natural predators, although alligators have been known to attack them. Young are preyed upon by larger fish. Alligator gars prey on fish, but they are opportunistic and have been known to feed on everything from waterfowl and small turtles to carrion.

Alligator gars are found throughout much of the coastal Southeast. They inhabit waters as far west as Texas and Oklahoma, as far north as the Mississippi River Basin and the lower Ohio and Missouri river systems, and southern drainages well into Mexico. Need help identifying a fish?

With more than 200 fish species in Indiana waters, anglers sometimes catch fish they can’t immediately identify. A new online tool through the DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife can help.

The Fish Identification Form allows the public to submit photos and information for free directly to fisheries biologists for help with identification. The form is at www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/9448.htm

The new tool will not only serve anglers but also benefit science. Information collected from the forms will help biologists track rare species and identify locations of invasive species.

“After several years of getting photos through email or social media, I thought it would be best to have a place where people could submit them directly to a biologist,” said Brant Fisher, DNR nongame aquatic biologist.

When submitting photos, include: a picture of the entire fish with something in it to reference size (ruler, coin, hand) and close-ups of unique features of the fish.

Email photos to fishid@dnr.IN.gov in medium-size JPEG file format. Videos should be MP4, WMV or MOV format and less than 10 MB in size.

Information collected on the Fish Identification Form includes length, weight, distinguishing characteristics, location and date of catch and observer information. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World.

Readers with questions or comments may contact Jack Spaulding by email at jackspaulding@hughes.net or by writing to him in care of this publication.