What Is the Best Alligator Gar Bait?

The best bait for alligator gar fishing is raw chicken. Gar fish are enticed by the scent of raw chicken, and small to medium sized gar fish bite best when the chicken is sliced into large chunks. For larger gar fish, it is best to use whole chicken breasts as bait. Garfish are also drawn to shrimp and bacon, as well as various legal fish bait.

In addition to raw chicken and live bait, many fishermen create their own special concoctions of “bait juice.” Bait juice typically consists of chicken liver blood or shrimp juice, sprinkled in the area or coated on the float bottles. The bait juice is a great draw for gar fish, as the aroma travels far across the water, bringing in the gar in drones.

Alligator gar fish are large in size, so it is important to use a composite rod that is sturdy with a spinning reel that can easily reel in 150 to 200 pounds. Gar fish are known to swim awhile with the bait before actually eating it, so it is important to keep a good eye on the float and wait until it ripples across the water before reeling in the catch.