Kyle Hammond of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has been seriously chasing big gar records in his home state for three years now. He broke the Indiana shortnose gar record (which he still holds) in 2021. And on July 11, he added a second state-record gar catch: a 9 pound, 11 ounce spotted gar he caught from Rivir Lake. Now, he says he’ll be trying for the trifecta, as the only species of gar left in the Indiana record book is the longnose.
The state’s Department of Natural Resources made Hammond’s record official on Wednesday, and the angler uploaded a video of his record-breaking catch to his YouTube channel, Indiana Kayak Fishing Journal, the same day. In the video, Hammond explains his quest to break all three of Indiana’s gar records and shows some of the highlights from his day on the water — including the moment his rod broke as he got the record-breaking fish in the net.
“When I started fishing for spotted gar, I was seeing quite a few fish bigger than the current Indiana record,” Hammond explains in the video’s introduction. “I knew it was just a matter of time to get one to bite, hook it and land it.”
Hammond finally got his opportunity in early July, and the bite came sooner than he expected. He’d gone out on Rivir Lake at Chain O’ Lakes State park in his kayak around 6 p.m. He hooked the 9-plus-pound fish, his first of the day, only twenty minutes into the outing. He was using a spinning rod rigged with a white Zoom soft-plastic fluke, and the fish ate just off the edge of a large weed bed.
“It’s the first fish I caught today, and it’s an absolute beast,” Hammond says in the video. “I can’t believe it, and I somehow broke my rod.”
Hammond carefully unhooked the toothy gar with two pairs of pliers once he got on shore and out of his kayak. He then weighed the fish on a digital hand scale and saw that it was well over the standing Indiana record of 6 pounds, 12.5 ounces. So, he contacted DNR biologist Tyler Delauder and met him at the agency’s Columbia City headquarters to get the fish weighed and officially measured.
Hammond also explains in his video how the DNR used to lump all gar records into one category. This changed a few years ago, he says, when the state expanded its record book to include individual categories for the three gar species that live in the state.
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Now that he’s caught a record shortnose gar, which is the smallest of the three species, along with a record spotted gar, all that’s left is the longnose gar record. These fish are found in different parts of the Southeast and Midwest, and they can grow up to six feet long. The current Indiana longnose gar record weighed 22 pounds, 5 ounces, and it was caught in 2008 from the East Fork of the White River. Longnose gar are the most common gar species found in Indiana. (Shortnose gar are common in the southern part of Indiana and occasional in the north; spotted gar are occasionally found in southern Indiana and are common in the north, according to the Indiana DNR.)
Hammond admits that breaking the final record won’t be easy, but at least he has something to shoot for.