Sebastian Benitez couldn’t believe what he caught the other day in the Trinity River near Kaufman. In an email to NBC 5, he called it a “true river monster.”
It was a gar, a family of ancient fish that existed alongside dinosaurs millions of years ago. Scientists believe they have changed very little since then.
Texas is home to four native species of gar.
Benitez has fished for alligator gar for the past three years. He’s caught two alligator gars, but the one he caught using common carp as bait was a first for the 19-year-old.
Benitez’s 42″ catch was a hybrid – a cross between a female alligator gar and a male longnose gar.
The mashup the teenager caught caught the attention of Texas Parks and Wildlife. The agency posted about it on social media.
“The interesting thing about the hybrid between these two species is it has intermediate characteristics, meaning that it’s not narrow like a longnose and it’s not duckbill like an alligator gar, but it’s triangular. So it’s essentially showing the intermediate of both species,” said Dan Daughtery, Science Program Director for the Inland Fisheries Division and Director of the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center at TPWD.
Daughtery has a Ph.D. in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. He knows his stuff, and while he’s seen hybrids up to six feet long, he knows Sebastian has something to brag about.
“It’s rare. It’s not unheard of, but it is rare. In all the sampling we have done in multiple systems throughout Texas, I would put the rarity at probably one in 100 to one in 200 fish,” Daughtery told NBC 5.
Daughtery says hybrids can be found wherever alligator gar exist, and that’s essentially east of the I-35 corridor throughout Texas.
Fishing for alligator gar on the Trinity River is world-renowned. NBC 5’s Meredith Yeomans recently went with a well-known gar guide named Ceelow to show us how it’s done. He’s also the guide Benitiz used for his catch.
“He was astonished to see what it was. He had only ever seen one other before, despite seeing thousands every year for the two decades he had been fishing in the Trinity for gar,” Benitez wrote.
Texas is hosting a random drawing during September that will allow 150 anglers to harvest one alligator gar over 48 inches from a section of the Trinity River. The state says it’s an opportunity to catch the fish of a lifetime.
“The quality of the alligator gar fishery in the Trinity River is probably arguably the world’s best fishery for alligator gar. We have folks coming from all over the country, all over the world to come try and fish a trophy-size fish in the Trinity River. So, I believe that in the Trinity River is where we will get the next world record fish.”
Sebastian Benitez may not have a world record fish yet – but he’ll never say you should have seen the one that got away. He now has his first prehistoric hybrid, a catch he says is “a massive deal for both local sports and evolutionary science.”