River Level... How High Is Too High?

[gotmuddy]

The gar look big in the buffalo but world records they are not.

I have caught my bigger fish on the buffalo in deep pools and when its sunny I have caught them around rocks. Smallmouth squeeze under the smallest gaps to get under rocks.

[Ham]

How was the water level?

[Jump n Fish]

How was the water level?

It was low, and I did have to get out A LOT, but most of the time just walking with the canoe in tow. Not that much actual dragging although there were a few places. Well worth the extra work for the solitude though.

BTW, I believe the world record longnose gar (which I think is what I was seeing) is around 50 lbs. I saw some in that stretch that sure appeared to top that. Didn't see near as many on the second half of the float though. They were mostly in that first 10 miles. Of course you can't really tell until you get them out of the water and on a scale and that clear water really magnifies things. But that considered, there are some absolute MONSTERS in there. I saw a few I thought almost had to be Alligator Gar due to the shear size of them, but I didn't think they existed in that river.

[gotmuddy]

we are too far north for alligator gar. It wouldnt surprise me to catch a 20lb gar in the river. The biggest gar I have caught was 4ft long 20lb alligator gar.

[Jump n Fish]

Well its hard to say for sure, but when I first wrote the post I didn't realize the record was as high as 50 lbs, and the more I think about how big a 50 lb fish really is, the less likely it seems that any weighed that much. But still some of those were thick and several seemed at least have the length of my 12' canoe. I've never seen gar that size except for a very few of the alligator gar down here in MS.

[eric1978]

we are too far north for alligator gar. It wouldnt surprise me to catch a 20lb gar in the river. The biggest gar I have caught was 4ft long 20lb alligator gar.

Alligator gar are found in both AR and MO. They are native to the lower Mississippi River Valley.

[Ham]

The gar you see in the Buffalo are Longnosed Gar. That is the only species of gar ever collected from the Buffalo in the scientific fish sampling studies from 1975 thru 2003.

There have been 74 species of fish collected from the Buffalo River and its tributaries within the NPS boundries.

I googled up a USGS STudy that I found pretty interesting.