Catch of ‘primitive’ gar breaks nine-year-old record

A Georgia angler has established a new state record with her catch Saturday of a 31-pound, 2-ounce longnose gar.

Rachel Harrison, of Adairsville, caught the toothy gar on the Coosa River near Rome. The catch breaks a record – 30 pounds, 13 ounces – that had stood since 2013.

“State records do not get broken every day, so join us in congratulating Rachel on her impressive catch,” the Georgia Department of Natural Resources exclaimed Monday on Facebook.

Longnose gar, of the broader gar family, “are considered relics from a large group of primitive fishes,” the DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division explained in a news release.

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The fish inhabit mostly weedy areas in lakes and streams, and prey largely on other fish.

For the sake of comparison, the world record for longnose gar stands at 43 pounds. That fish was caught in the Trinity River in Texas in 2017.