Fishing in an undisclosed bayou in Houston last Thursday, Payton Moore landed a fish of a lifetime that caused him to choke up after releasing it.
Moore, who videotapes his fishing exploits and posts them on YouTube, caught an estimated 300-pound alligator gar that stretched 8 feet, 2 inches and had a girth estimated at 48 inches.
Had he kept the fish, it might have been a state record. The current Texas record is 302 pounds set in 1953.
“I just need a moment,” Moore says in his video, after releasing the fish.
“An animal like that, a better part of a century in age, I can fish for the rest of my life and never see one like that again…I’m sorry. It’s almost emotional.”
You can see in the video that it was emotional. He posted the 15-minute video on his “Wild Life” YouTube channel.
Once he got the gar close to shore, he lassoed it with a rope, measured it and took photos before releasing it.
Moore told…