Angler’s Massive Alligator Gar is a Texas Record

On April 13, Paul Hefner landed the largest alligator gar ever taken from Lake Corpus Christi in Texas. A photo of the massive fish shared on Facebook by Texas Park & Wildlife (TPW) on May 22 shows that it was longer than Hefner by well over a foot. The gar is 99 pounds heavier than the previous alligator gar record for Lake Corpus Christi, which was caught in March of this year.

Hefner caught the big gar while jug fishing with his father. It weighed an astonishing 207 pounds and taped out at about 7.5 feet, Newsweek reports. After recording its measurements and posing for a side-by-side photo, he released the prehistoric giant “to swim another day,” TPW wrote in its Facebook post.

In an interview with KSAT, Hefner said he’s been fishing Lake Corpus Christi with his dad since the 1980s. He caught the record-breaking gar after baiting his jug fishing rig with a 12-inch live tilapia. It was the only fish of the day even though recent rains had produced…