Gar in Canyon Lake

This one of the species of the weird fish that Randy and others saw displayed in the bait shop: a Gar. According to this article in the Texas Wildlife Magazine, there are four species of this fish in Texas.  Only one is the Alligator Gar even though a lot of people mistakenly call all of them by that name.  We won’t do that!

Gar used to be considered  nuisance fish but now people go after them for sport.  They can get quite large.

But the real question for us:  do they bite people??  The answer according to Texas Fish and Wildlife is no.    The Texas Fish and Wildlife website is full of good information:

There are many anecdotal reports of alligator gar in central Texas reservoirs, from San Angelo and Abilene to Waco and Austin, but Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries biologists have never confirmed one from any of these reservoirs. Most likely, gar observed in these systems are longnose or spotted gar. Learn how to identify the different gar species.

So now we know:  the ones in the bait shop are longnose gar.