My son, Ryan, sent this story about his big catch in our marina last week.

Around 6:30pm I decided to try out a new lure in the marina. The lure is a pink wedge tail aka
“Pink Bomb” made by Egret Baits. My goal was to catch a trout or a flounder. After trying all
around the marina, I decided to walk to the fish cleaning stand next to the motel for a couple of
casts.
On my second cast, throwing straight towards the channel, I felt hung up on my retrieval. It was
dead weight as I reeled, slowly coming towards me. I figured it was an oyster shell or an old
crabbing net. Then all of a sudden I noticed my line moving left. That’s when I knew I had
something huge!
Note, I was fishing with light tackle and a medium-action rod, so imagine my rod bent over like a
rainbow. I assumed I was hooked onto this alligator gar, because I have seen it around the
marina. However, I was not sure of its size until I saw it thrashing in the water at the end of my
line. It was about 5ft! It had been scavenging fish scraps before taking my lure, because it still
had fish skin hanging out of its snout.
It led me back and forth around the marina along the seawall; Occasionally taking drag as it ran
to the middle of the channel. Every time it pulled drag I thought I would lose it. At this time 3
brothers from Cuero (Mitchell, Harrison and Landon) were fishing at the cross bridge and
noticed I was fighting this huge fish. Along with their help and the use of a rope we were able to
beach him at the boat ramp. The entire battle took 30 minutes. We took pictures and safely

released it back into the marina.