J. EDMUND BARNES

PHOTO 1: Treble hooks work best for gar because they are much more likely to set in a gar’s peculiar narrow mouth. (Staff photo by J. Edmund Barnes) NORCO – The sun is hot and the air is heavy with humidity as cars go whipping by at breakneck speed on U.S. Highway 61. The water is high along the banks of the canal that borders the lakeside of the road. The current swirls the water around a culvert that runs under the highway. And the gar are hungry – feeding on the tiny bait fish that swim in schools right up to the edge of the bank. All this is because of Allison – she dumped enough rain on the area to make the canal slip its banks just a few hundred yards down the road. Now the water drains off to the west and the gar make the water look alive as they fin around and snap at the tiny fish with their long toothy jaws. Lyndon Rush and Stan Wilson are also here because of Allison. The roads south leading to Grand Isle are still underwater and impassable. But they wanted to fish, and men determined to fish aren’t dissuaded easily. PHOTO 2: Stan Wilson holds a gar he reeled in from the canal along Airline Highway. (Staff photo by J. Edmund Barnes) Rush, who owns a landscaping service in Baton Rouge, said he hasn’t been busy recently, what with all the rain the area has had over the past week. Wilson, a construction worker from Tennesse, agreed. The rains might have been bad for business, but its good for fishing. “They’re following the bait,” says Wilson. “Wherever the moving water is, is where they’re at.” The surface, ordinarily green with algae, is almost clear – the few green flecks move right to left rapidly. In the center of the canal is an island of short bushes built up around a cypress tree. This is gar central – the water almost boils with their movement. Rush baits a treble hook with a shiner; a small, silver bait fish, and throws the line in the water. He uses a fiberglass cane pole with about 16 feet of line. He has a cork rigged about two feet above the hook to let him know exactly when a gar has become interested in his bait. He puts the line in the water and lays the pole on the ground. He doesn’t have to wait very long. The cork twitches and begins to take a life of its own. It moves around the surface in mad little arcs as the gar tries to take to bait off the treble hook with its needle-like teeth. Rush picks up the pole and walks away from the bank towards the highway – cane poles having no reel – and the cork thrashes as the gar struggles to break free. Just before he can pull the fish out of the water, the gar frees itself. At the very edge of the water the gar is visible; a long thin fish that tapers from its tail to its nose, another dinosaur that somehow survived into this modern day. “The thing about the gar, they’re aggressive,” says Wilson. “They’re greedy. They’ll always come back.” Rush rebaits his line and puts the cork almost exactly were he got the first hit. “We came to catch brim but the gar ran them off,” saysRush. When asked how to cook a gar, Rush immeditally rattled off a series of recipes. “You cut ’em out of their shell and marinate them. You can grill them, smoke them, bake them, or make a gravy out of them like the old people used to. Or you can grind them up into a batter and make gar balls out of them.” Both men are taking time off to fish -Wilson from the construction business and Rush from night school in Baton Rouge. “We’ll stay out till the evening, till late,” says Rush. Though their plans were disrupted by the storm, the two were making the best of the situation. But that’s what fishing is all about.