Second Biggest Gar Of The Season

My wife Debbie took a day off to Gar Fish with me today and like usual this late in the season, fishing was slow. We started out at my most productive spot of late and there were a few Gar surfacing but not as active as we would have like, so we moved to the spot where Debbie caught her 23lb-6oz monster a week ago. This spot was totally empty so we moved back to the original location. After about 20 minutes a Large Gar surfaced about 20 yards from the boat. I really had no idea which direction it was headed so I just made a cast as close as I could to the swirl and started working the rope lure. I was about to retrieve it back to the boat, in fact just started doing just that when I felt the Gar hit my lure. I free spooled my reel and just felt it out with my fingers on the line and felt that the Gar was still on. As the Gar began to move away with my lure I told Debbie, "I've got it on now but you know how my luck has gone recently with that. I have it on then I don't have it on." I have had a lot of bad luck with Gar hitting my lure, thinking that I have it on, and then, nothing. The Gar just some how backs out of the lure in this fat water and disappears and then I’m left wondering what just happened. Anyway, this one just kept moving away with my lure and after feeling a couple of headshakes I lock my reel down and tighten up on it. I told Debbie that I wasn't sure how big it was and then suddenly this gal started stripping line. I could now feel the heaviness of the Gar and I knew it was at least big, but I couldn't tell how big yet. This Gar just kept feeling heavier and heavier and with every headshake, in my mind it was getting bigger and bigger. I finally pulled it up to the surface, even by the boat and I told Debbie, "This is one of our biggest Gar this year", And then suddenly this thing started stripping line like crazy, on and on until I began getting worried and tightened down my drag a bit. Do you think that stopped this beast; not really because my line on this Ambassadeur 6500, a fairly big reel, was about to become empty so I locked the drag down some more and finally stop it. I don't have hooks so this is a delicate situation and I had to be very careful not to pull the nylon out of it’s beak. The Gar had taken me out into the middle of the lake by then and just seemed to keep getting deeper and deeper and I finally realized it had gone to the bottom and found a stump or tree to try and get lose. Luckily I pulled it off the structure and finally, finally got it up to the surface by the boat, reached out and grabbed it by the beak. At last, it was in the boat and knew then it would challenge Debbie's big Gar of last week. After taking a measurement at 53 inches I then tried to weigh it and the nylon pulled loose and the big Gar fell to the floor of my boat. I told Debbie, "Lets go ahead and get some pictures before I find a way to weight this big girl". After the pictures I found some rope and tied it's beak up and weighed it and fell a little short of Debbie's Gar but weighed 22lbs-6ozs, my second biggest Longnose of the season. A great start to the day but the only Gar caught all day long.