Inner Tubing With The Alligator Gar In The Trinity River Is Perfectly Safe

This afternoon CatsPaw sent me a link to a Blotch entry in FW Weekly, by Jeff Prince, that she thought I might find interesting.

The Blotch entry is titled "200-Pound Gar Caught On Rod And Reel In Trinity,"

In the Blotch Jeff Prince writes about his childhood memories of encounters with Alligator Gar.

And mentions that Joseph Williams of Cleveland, Texas set a new rod and reel record for fishing in the Trinity River by catching the 7 foot 9 inch prehistoric monster you see in the picture, somewhere near Athens, Texas.

Williams' scale only weighed in 50 pound increments, weighing the Gar at 200 pounds. Williams says the fish really weighed 230.

That is big. Really big. I've never weighed 230. And currently I don't even weigh 200.

I'd be no match for an Alligator Gar in the Trinity River.

When summer comes and J.D. Granger starts having his Happy Hour Inner Tube Parties in the Trinity River, are rod and reel going to be supplied to fish for Alligator Gar?

I have only seen an Alligator Gar once in the wild, that is if you consider Village Creek in Arlington to be wild. The Gar I saw was between 2 and 3 feet.

My swimming in Texas lakes ended after I was up at Lake Grapevine, talking to a pair of girls, laying on the dock at the end of my Horseshoe Trails bike ride.

The girls told me that a friend of theirs had stepped on a Gar, right near the dock. The teeth cut up his feet badly. He had to go to a hospital.

I have never been in a Texas lake again.

Maybe a TRVB study found that Alligator Gar are deathly afraid of inner tubes and that is why the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle promotes inner tubing in the Trinity River as a safe and sane activity.

Yeah, I'm sure that is it.

Today I Learned That Tubing The Trinity Is The Latest Craze In Fort Worth Among Other Things

A couple days ago I blogged about a slick propaganda brochure from the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle that had arrived in my mailbox.

I blogged about the brochure before I actually read through the entirety of the propaganda.

Yesterday I blogged about Water Baby's possible spotting of an alligator in the Trinity River, right at the location pictured in the TRV's slick propaganda brochure of crazy people Inner Tubing in the Trinity River.

I bet you did not know that Tubing on the Trinity is the latest craze in Fort Worth. I know I sure didn't. I can't actually think of anything I'm aware of in Fort Worth that is a craze.

The brochure earnestly suggests I grab some friends & head out for a Trinity River floating event. Anyone reading this in Washington, where the rivers run clean, want to fly down to Texas to do some tubing with me? It's the latest craze in this fine town I'm living in.

Yesterday after I blogged about Water Baby's gator I got a few good comments regarding critters in the Trinity River.

Unca Mikey said...Y'think maybe it was a nutria? We've seen lots of nutria in the Trinity, and when they swim they leave a wake like that. We've even seen herds of Nutria grazing along the river below the Taylor St. roundabout.

Anonymous said...Or an alligator gar. Trinity is home to them, some of them weighing up to 200 lbs. The tributaries are full of snakes, some of them bigger than you care to think about. 

CatsPaw said...Hey, that's my 'hood. Considering a nine-and-a-half footer was caught, tagged and released in Lake Worth last summer, alligators are entirely possible here. They're here; they're just stealthy and usually feed at night. Just have some night tubing and this location can be featured in ChowBaby.

And then there is the gem below that I missed upon first perusal of the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure.

When I blogged about the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure I did make note of the part that mentioned over 2,500 people toured a Streetcar when it visited Fort Worth.

Anonymous then commented that it was odd that the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure neglected to mention that the Fort Worth City Council killed the streetcar project.

I'd not noticed the part of the brochure above, where the caption says, "A modern streetcar was parked outside the TRVA office from Nov. 16-28 for citizens to gain firsthand knowledge of the transportation option."

Or the picture next to that of Fort Worth's Ruling Despot, Mayor Mike Moncreif, with the caption saying, "Mayor Moncrief and other local leaders unveiled the streetcar Nov. 17 and announced a public town hall meeting to discuss the possibility of having streetcars in Fort Worth."

Yes, it really does seem odd to me, now, that the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure made no mention of the fact that the Fort Worth Streetcar had died.

You in other parts of America are likely wondering how a modern streetcar happened to be in Fort Worth for knowledge gaining purposes.

Well.

Now, you are going to think I am making this up. I assure you I am not. Just like I'm not making up the fact that the latest Fort Worth craze is Inner Tubing in the snake, gator, nutria, alligator gar infested Trinity River.

It is also a fact that, bizarre as it seems, the TRV Boondoggle, in cahoots with a couple other entities, shipped a streetcar from Portland, Oregon, so that locals, who have never seen such a modern wonder. Or been to Dallas. Could see such a marvel.

I'm surprised only around 2,500 people took advantage of the opportunity to gain this once in a lifetime knowledge. I would have thought the number would have been in the 100s of thousands, just like those humongous crowds that filled the Sundance Square parking lots because ESPN was broadcasting from a Fort Worth parking lot.

I'm done now.