As a kid some 45 years ago, I bathed in the mystery of a sleepy, slow, Southern river. The Sabine of my youth was a muddy puzzle that rarely gave up its secrets to a pre-teen boy armed with a spinning rod, a Zebco 33 spooled with 8-pound mono, and a pocket full of Beetle-Spins. But when it did, the rewards were gigantic. Big cats. The occasional fat crappie. Once in a while, it coughed up a sizable black bass or a foot-long sand bass.

But the Sabine’s biggest secrets, the heftiest of the hefty, were its massive gar. Home to both alligator and longnose gar, the Sabine safeguarded these giant prehistoric air breathers just beneath its milk-chocolate waters, only giving them up if they dared to hang just under the surface on sunny summer days, or when they breached the river’s slow, slick surface and grabbed a gulp of sultry East Texas air before disappearing back into the depths, leaving behind a chorus of exclamations no 12-year-old boy should ever utter out loud, especially within hearing range of his mother.

Try as we might, we couldn’t get them to consistently chase our spinners, and the worms and crickets we used to tempt the Sabine’s panfish in its backwater sloughs were of no interest to the big, toothy predators. The gar were, as far as we could tell, damn near uncatchable with our light-tackle approach. Occasionally, at put-ins or take-outs, we’d come across somebody just off the river with a gar as a trophy. I remember one angler cleaning a four-foot-long alligator gar with a hand axe – their scale-armored hide is thick and impenetrable by the little foldable knives our mother let us carry on the river. And the only reason I know this is by way of something approaching a miracle.

My little brother, three years my junior, managed to impale a 24-inch longnose gar with a frog gig one hot summer afternoon. Like Neptune and his trident, Brice speared the beast as it sunned under the overhanging water oaks with a once-in-a-lifetime heave. I’ll never forget the mayhem that ensued, and I’ll surely never forget trying to disembowel the big fish at the take-out with my pocket-sized blade. We resorted to taking the fish home to a neighbor, who gleefully accepted the fish and returned a few hours later with some of the best deep-fried fish I’d ever tasted (yes, gar are absolutely edible — their white flesh isn’t the least bit fishy, and its texture leans toward halibut on the low end and a delightful tenderized chicken breast if you get the right cut).

My neighbor was quick to let us know one important detail about gar, however.

“They are delicious,” he said. “But don’t eat the eggs. You’ll never be sicker.”

Indeed, the gar’s eggs — both the alligator and longnose variety — contain ichthyotoxins, which, within an hour of being ingested, will have the unlucky diner tethered to the bathroom, and that’s if a trip to the emergency room can be avoided. The toxin is a natural defense mechanism against predators in the wild.

On the fly?

As I matriculated through high school and eventually college in western Colorado, I left the Sabine and its mysteries behind in favor of a fly rod and the trout that swim in the cold, clear waters of the Rockies. But I never forgot the river or the days we spent in and on its dark waters. And I never forgot the gar.

Then, about 20 years ago, while on a redfish trip to Cocodrie, just outside of Baton Rouge, my guide and I came across a massive alligator gar chasing baitfish up against the marsh-grass-covered mud islands. From atop the platform, I looked back at the guide, who just nodded and said, “Let her rip.”

I had a little mylar spoon fly at the end of my tippet, and when the fly hit the water, the beast of a fish — and I’m not exaggerating when I say that the fish was well over five feet long — turned on it and snapped it into its toothy mouth. For what might have been the most memorable 20 or 30 seconds of my fishing career, I was connected to something so big, so wild, and so aggressive that all I could realistically do was hang on.

With giggles from coming from my guide, who’d climbed down off the poling platform and cranked the motor, I watched my sturdy 8-weight pump up and down as the giant fish tore fly line off my reel and pulled into the tannin-stained waters of Terrebonne Bay (yes, gar can and do live happily in brackish water, just as they thrive in freshwater rivers from Oklahoma, south to the Gulf and east to the Atlantic).

“Put the hammer down!” the guide shouted as he lowered the prop into the marsh in preparation for a pursuit. “Keep it tight and put the hammer down!”

I tightened the drag knob on the reel and noted just how little it did to keep this fish that likely weighed close to 60 pounds from retreating into the Louisiana ether. And then, just like that, the line went slack. It was gone.

“Well,” I remember the guide saying, “that’s probably for the best. But they’ll give you a hell of ride, huh?”

Dejected, I agreed. I was “this close” to my first legit gar catch, and after everything came together, it just fell apart in a tangle of nylon fly line and depression. The take-away from my first real run-in with this prehistoric beast? They’re tough to hook and even tougher to land.

Over the years, I’ve known anglers who will willingly tangle with gar in slow southern rivers. A group of friends who fish the Potomac in Washington, D.C., have dialed in the fly fishing for these ancient fish, and the flies they use are something of a hybrid between a streamer and stringy nylon that, more than anything, tangles in the razor-sharp teeth of these magnificent predators. The latter ingredient doesn’t interest me much — the thought of trying to pull strands of waterski rope out of a gar’s mouth is downright terrifying, and I can’t imagine the stress it puts on these fish that already deal with a general lack of respect. Such is the life of a “trash fish,” I suppose.

Both varieties of gar found in the South are long-lived beasts, and both deserve the respect that comes with being a living fossil that hasn’t changed much in some 240 million years. These fish first swam the dark waters of the world during the Triassic period. About 100 million years ago, the alligator gar and the longnose gar diverged into distinct genera — the Atractosteus (alligator gar) and Lepisosteus (longnose gar). This puts the lineage of these fish on the same track as early crocodilians and other reptilian dinosaurs.

Today, some Southern states — most notably Texas — overtly protect these ancient fish. For instance, in the Lone Star State, the legal bag limit for alligator gar is one fish, and that single fish must be under 48 inches in length. And don’t shudder — alligator gar can grow to enormous lengths. From the stern of our trusty 17-foot aluminum canoe we used to boat the Sabine, I can absolutely recall encounters with alligator gar – the larger of the two species – that, to the eyes of sweaty and muddy kid, were half the length of our craft. Little did I know that any gar of that size is likely well over half a century old. That, alone, commands mad respect.

But what else makes these incredible fish worth the chase? If catching a fish whose ancestors might have swum between the legs of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex in the Cretaceous period isn't enough motivation, consider this: the gar might be the perfect fish for its habitat. Not only is it endlessly toothy and virtually impenetrable thanks to its hard-as-nails scales, it's armed with a vascular swim bladder that allows it to breathe air and thrive in low-oxygen environments. This prehistoric fish might be the most sophisticated critter in the river.

Is the first one the last one?

Little did I know that I’d age well into my 50s before catching my first mouth-hooked gar, and that I’d catch it on a little baitfish fly pattern cast tight to a sunning fish in the St. Sebastian River of eastern Florida. Fishing from a friend’s boat in search of the river’s big jacks and tarpon, I was able to put flies in front of several longnose gar doing what longnose gar do — they hang motionless under overhanging live oak branches or mangroves and they the drift along with floating debris, possibly in hopes of being mistaken for defensive cover for hapless baitfish, like the partially sunken wood many anglers say they resemble. More importantly, I was able to attract interest, which, given my past with these fish, surprised me. I had several quick hookups, but as expected, their bony, impenetrable jaws quickly spit the small flies and the fish escaped a bit wiser for the experience. I learned, too. I learned that gar will give a fly angler a target. And ask any fervent long-rodder, from a bonefish angler to a New Zealand trout fisher — a target matters. And watching it all go down? That’s the best ever.

Finally, on my third day on the river, I managed to not just hook a three-foot-long longnose gar, I managed to get it close enough to net and eventually land. I hid my enthusiasm, despite the less-than-energetic fight of this particular fish, and allowed the boat’s captain to carefully remove the fly (which was completely trashed, by the way). For the first time in decades, I had my hands on a real Southern dinosaur, and I was thrilled. Just as I remembered, the armored creature was stout and firm and as slippery as a mud cat. I kept my fingers away from its snapping, razor-rimmed jaws, and I finally got the fish lifted up from the bottom of the boat and gingerly held it out over the dark water of the St. Sebastian.

I dropped the dinosaur back into the drink, and did a bit of celebrating, but quietly and on the inside. I remembered those stellar days when my brother and I would float the murky Sabine and ply its waters so fervently, wondering what it would be like to one day boat such a beast. With the circle now closed, I could call the lifetime chase complete.

But I know better. I’ll cast to gar again. I might even catch another, if I’m lucky. If they’ll give me a target, I’ll do my best to hit it. I just don't have 50 more years to make it happen.