TEXAS, USA — If someone asked you, "What's the biggest fish you've ever caught"? What would you say? Well, angler Art Weston has a fish tale like no one else.
Back in September, Weston traveled from his home in Kentucky to Lake Sam Rayburn for a fishing trip. And it was a trip he nor his guide Captain Kirk Kirkland will ever forget.
Weston and Kirkland landed a world-record Alligator Gar.
"This fish was 100 inches long, by 48-inch girth [and] was 283 pounds," Kirkland said. “It is the biggest freshwater fish ever caught with a rod and reel totally freshwater.”
Kirkland is a well-known International Game Fish Association guide. Weston currently holds 30 IGFA records. This record, now verified, makes this the largest freshwater fish caught on a six-pound test line.
Weston and Kirkland both say the fishing trip did not start with the intention of setting a new record, but it proves anything is possible.
“And you know, people tell you that, you know, oh, there's no way you can catch a fish on that light line. Look at the sailfish records, look at the swordfish records, all that stuff. There's some really big fish being caught on light line. But it takes a great captain. It takes a great angler to do that," Kirkland said.
But to land the giant Gar, the team had to take things low and slow. It took nearly three hours to reel it in. Kirkland tells us it was kind of boring.
"If you want to know because it's a lot of shifting the motor back and forth, turning the wheel back and forth trying to keep to this fish, you know, with the fish while she's swimming, and Art’s just keeping about three and a half four pounds of pressure on her just to keep enough pressure just to you know, to keep her head up and keep her from breaking the line.”
Kirkland and Weston brought the fish into the boat using a lasso. This gargantuan Gar broke a record for a six-pound test line that stood since Harry Truman was president.
The world record previous to that was 117 pounds, caught on six-pound line.
"So, we broke the world record the all-tackle world record, which is the heaviest fish that's ever been caught of that species on any land class up to 130 pounds. We broke the line class record. We broke the Texas state record, and we broke the water body record," Kirkland said.
Kirkland and Weston took pictures to mark the moment then released this fish back into Lake Sam Rayburn. Kirkland estimates the Gar could be 100-years-old. Conservation of these fish is of the utmost importance to him.
“If you ever kill a fish in that, like that fish, as old as she is, you'll never replace that fish in your lifetime," Kirkland said.
Alligator Gar in Texas date back to pre-historic times. That makes them dinosaurs and in Texas, most of these ancient fish call the Trinity River and Texas Gulf Coast home.
Texas Parks and Wildlife conservation efforts are designed to keep them here forever.
“There’s a limit of one Alligator Gar per day if you want to harvest them. But of course, there is a lot of rod and reel fisherman on the Trinity Rover, and some of the lakes that they're located in that practice catch and release strictly of Gar," said Dan Bennett, TPWD biologist.
Conservation measures and angler efforts like catch and release mean bigger fish are lurking in Rayburn and the Trinity River. That means Kirkland and Weston’s record could be broken.
“But the potential of that 300-pound fish is here. I mean we have it we have the protection for them now. We have the forage you know so that fish can get that 300 pounds as long as we keep releasing these big fish back into the waters," Kirkland said.