Lady Angler Establishes West Point Gar Record On Video

Larry and April Waldrop with April’s new lake-record gar from West Point Lake.

Now that April Waldrop has been bitten by the record fish bug, the Hogansville woman has set her sights on something even bigger.

April was fishing for gar with her husband, Larry, and her two sons on West Point Lake recently when she landed a lake-record longnose gar that weighed 23 pounds. The 52 1/2-inch fish was officially weighed in LaGrange.

“We were fishing on a boat owned by a friend of ours named Ken Athon,” she said. “He usually fishes for stripers and other things, but on this night, we decided to fish for gar,” April said.

“My two sons caught the first two fish. One of those fish probably weighed 10 pounds, the other about 12. That’s when I said it was my turn.”

A shad was put on her hook, and she cast out. About five minutes later, something swallowed the bait.

“It was a battle for about five minutes,” she said. “I got it to the boat pretty quick.”

She said her first reaction was that the gar had some scary teeth. She and her husband checked GON.com for the record on West Point Lake longnose gar and saw that no one had ever submitted a fish for consideration. They then checked to see what procedures they needed to follow for the fish become an official record.

The following day, they took the fish to Lee’s Crossing Feed & Seed and had it weighed on certified scales with two witnesses.

The record fish set April doing some research. She discovered that the Georgia state record for longnose gar is 31 pounds. She said that is now her goal.

“I’d love to beat that record,” she said. “We’re all going to try for that.”