Cooking Garfish
 

I caught a 4' alligator gar yesterday and I was looking for a good way to cook it,any ideas?

Grind it up, grind some raw taters, chop up some onions and green onions.
Mix up good with some Tony's and make some thin patties. Dredge in flour
and fry dem baby's up in a black skillet with a 1/4" hot oil in it.

I hear GarBalls are good.

Since I've never had any I would have to speculate that just having 1 gar your going to walk away Hungry.:D

mmmmmm, man that would be awesome right now!

That is how I would do it....

That's the only way.
Other than the towel method commonly used with Jackravelle

The best way I've found to cook gar.
 

Heres the recipe for a good gar balls and gravy.
The best recipe Ive found for garballs and gravy is to first ground the meat up then season the meat up really well with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and any other special seasoning that you really like. then add bread crumbs and form into meatball sized balls. put them to the side then start your gravy. brown your roux real dark and season the gravy up to your liking. then take the garballs you formed up earlier and throw them in the garbage. then find some good tasty meat to put in that gravy and quit wasting time with those trashy fish. Then enjoy.
:*****:

That sounds similar to the Cedar Plank Goose recipe I know.

i like dat recipe

Garfish is good meat.
I have sliced it off the fillet, seasoned and marinated, then chunked it on the pit.
When done, make a sammich with dat.

I was shocked when I saw how white the meat was,looks like good stuff

It is firm clean meat. That's why it tastes so good.
It can be tough if you don't grind it up or maninate it.

Gar is very good, but like Ray said, if you're not going to grind it up you need to marinate it good so it's not so tough.

I was told years ago.....that most fast food places that serve a fish sandwich usually use gar meat.

Before the gill net ban, I put a few nets out in the marshes just South of Lamberts Bayou, after big rains in the Spring, and sell Gar fillets for $4.50/lb. That was in the 70's and 80's.
I could sell as much as I could catch. They are easy to clean and you get a lot of meat out of one.

And I thought the gill net was just banned recently.

:shaking: :*****:

Another question,what's the best way to fillet the meat off the bones?

Cook on the grill with garlic butter, taste like shrimp.

Whats your technique in cleaning a gar. For me if it's kind of small I cut them in about 8" sections and then run a fillet knife to the skin and roll it till it cuts free and then I can push the meat out the tube. If they are good size, I use a hatchet down the back from head to tail then cut the tail off and use a sharp knife to cut the tendons all the way around and seperate from the collar. Always willing to learn some thing new if you have a different way.

LMAO!!! I don't think anyone got :rotfl:

Yeah kinda like fool with Ray's tricycle joke!!!

I was thinking maybe I would have to follow up with the "if your talking mountain oysters than that would be different."

To clean larger gars drive a spike angled down into a post and cut the head of the spike off. The spike should be high enough to keep the gar off the ground. Hang the gar head down impaled on the spike. Remember Vlad the Impaler? Then use a hatchet to cut the back fin off starting at the tail end and going down towards the head. This should leave a strip about 3/4"-1" wide without scales. Starting in this skinned strip use a skinning knife and begin skinning going around the sides and down towards the head. When the skin is pulled back you can cut out the fillets like a deer backstrap and never dull your knife trying to cut through the scales.

I got your gar joke..

Sure ya did!!:rolleyes:

Ditto, or you can use a 2 X 12 with a big nail in it with the head cut off. Set the gar on the board with the hole on the nail to prevent it from sliding.
I grab the top fin fartherest to the tail with pliers and use a machette or hatchet and chop your way to the head, leaving a 1 or 2 inch gap without scales. I have seen people use tin snips to cut the scales also.
Then cut the meat off the cartlage bone in the center. Cut red meat off rinse good and set in a cooler of ice water.

thats how i do it

I believe I can eat a better fish for a whole lot less work. whenever I need to involve boards, axes, and machetes to clean my catch, thats where I gotta draw the line and ask myself--"self, do you really need this meat that bad" and the answer is always gonna be NO

Yet you will build or buy a deer stand and put it together, go into the woods during the summer heat of 98 degrees plus at 100 % humidity, swing a machete and or axe to clear shooting lanes for several hours or days, plant a food plot or more by disk or plow in the same temp. Move other deer stands that did not produce the year before. Clear the camp area, spray for wasp, check for snakes in the stands and camp. Oh yea I see what your getting at...:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

not really, I dont plant food plots, all our stands are in good areas so we dont move em. our biggest clean up is just bush hogging and spending 2-3 hours around the camp cleaning up. we spend one weekend in august or september with 2-3 people and thats about as much work as we put in and all in all we kill 10-15 deer a year off the property
I like your angle but in my case its WAY off. I don't put in that much work and what little work we do, yields approximately 100-200lbs of meat per year per person not 5-10 from an ol tough fish.

I can say I have just "half shelled" a gar and threw it on the pit and it was actually pretty good...

Dang, it sounds like you found some good hunting grounds. The gar are not that bad to clean, and they are worth the little trouble of cleaning. Gar patties pan fried are delicious if done right. I guess it is all in what you enjoy. Your hunting is a lot like mine. I have 20 acres with hundreds of acres wooded around mine. I have a small power line running thru my property where I have my one and only stand. I disc it every other year and plant clover to keep the saw briers down. I usually get 2 or 3 from it. Plenty enough for my wife and I.

yea thats how we are. we are surrounded by thousands of acres of land that is hunted very little, so God has really blessed us with a great place to hunt at no charge other than just keeping up around the place here and there

It sounds like a lot of work to clean a gar but like with anything once you do it a few times it goes quite fast. I can clean 3-4 nice size gar in a mater of 15-20 mins.

Sounds like Ray is an expert!!!!

Is there a Gar category in the tournament?



I don't think he listed that in his resume when I was looking for fishing partners!!!!:D

In mid Dec., the Gar were rolling all over that opening to the West of Lamberts weirs.
I used to catch a lot in nets and jugs, but never while fishing Trout and Reds.

Caught a couple nice sized alligator gar in the Pits alongside LA 1 between Fourchon and Grand Isle fishing for trout and reds. My buddy Eman caught a huge one one day by the Cell Phone Tower. I used to catch a ton of 'em in the marsh in Johnson's Bayou on live cocahoes throwing a line while we were crabbing. Had to keep the gators from chasing and eating my popping cork while I was fishing there.

We just ate a big ole pot full of gar in a gravy,first time I ate it like dat. Talk about some good stuff,if you think gar isn't good your missing out.