David Confair and his fishing pal Grant Usilton were drift fishing for big longnose gar in Confair’s 23-foot boat on February 8. They were working a drop-off along Marshyhope Creek, a tributary of the Nanticoke River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
“We were on the water about 8 a.m., using deep double-hook rigs baited with cut gizzard shad,” Confair tells Outdoor Life. “We’ve fished that spot drifting in my boat for about seven years, and it’s a great place for big gar. I think they’re staging for spring spawning in about 15 feet of water.”
They had already caught several fish when Confair hooked a big one.
“They don’t fight real hard because the water is cold,” says the 50-year old Chesapeake Bay waterman from Secretary, Maryland. “So I got it to the surface in just a minute or so and put it in the boat.”
The anglers are used to catching huge gar, and Confair once held a previous state record for the species. When he put the gar in the boat, his handheld weigh scale registered 19 pounds.
“I figured it would be a state-record fish,” he said. “But we kept fishing, and 20 minutes later I hooked another big one, got it to the boat, and Grant netted it. I knew it was bigger than the fish I’d just caught, and I was pretty sure I had a new Maryland gar record.”
The anglers went back to fishing. But Confair notice that his bigger gar was hooked deep and bleeding. He knew that blood loss would reduce the fish’s weight for a possible record, so he wanted to go in and have it weighed on certified scales.
“But Grant didn’t want to go,” Confair says with a laugh. “He thought there were even bigger gar along that drop-off, and wanted to catch the record … But it’s my boat, and I said, ‘We’re leaving.’”
They ran back in and took the gar to the Choptank River Crab and Oyster Co. in Cambridge, where it was weighed on certified scales. The big fish weighed 20.5 pounds, with a 49.5-inch length.
Both Confair’s big fish that day topped the Maryland longnose gar record in the state’s Chesapeake division that weighed 18.3 pounds and was caught by Samson Matthews in 2020, also in Marshyhope Creek.
Confair had the longnose gar record prior to Matthews’ fish. That gar was caught by Confair in 2019 and weighed 17.9 pounds.
Confair’s new record gar weighing 20.5 pounds was verified and certified for the state by Maryland DNR recreational fisheries coordinator Erik Zlokovitz.
Confair targets big pre-spawn longnose gar with a terminal set-up similar in style to the popular Sabiki bait rig. He uses a pair of small No. 4 hooks and 20-pound test monofilament line for leader. The rig is taken deep with a 1-ounce sinker and baited with ½-inch by 2-inch strips of cut gizzard shad flesh.
“It’s important to keep baits just off bottom for gar, because if they sit on bottom catfish take them,” he explains. “That’s why we drift, so we can hold double bait rigs just above bottom and away from cats.”
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Confair uses heavy spinning tackle with 30-pound test braided line.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever catch a bigger gar, so I’m having my 20.5-pounder made into a mount by a taxidermist.”