Hey ksmirk,
When I grew up in Tx., we used to make gar lures from yellow nylon rope. You just cut a 3" piece of rope, fray the ends out real good and tie it on your line, on a real stout heavy rod and reel combo. Cast it out and retreive with a jigging action. When the gar bites it the teeth get hung in the nylon and you either catch him, or lose the rod. Many times we’d just about empty the gar population in a streatch of water this way. It wasn’t unusual to bring home 15 or 20 in the 50+ lB. range from Lake Dallas, and Lake Texoma.
You could probably do the same thing on a smaller scale for fly rodding. Unwind the 1st layer of the rope and cut off one of the smaller strands, say a piece about 2" long and fray the end really good. Use a short heavy piece of monofilament for a leader, say about 3’ of 30lb test. Tie the lure to the mono with the appropriate knot and cast it to where there are gar. Retrieve with a jigging streamer type retrieve,…and no matter what…HANG ON! They run, they jump clear of the water…they twist…they hiss and generally try to cause total mayhem and destruction when snared, so be careful. In Tx., 100 Lb. gar are fairly common.
I can’t test this here, so please let me know how it works if you try it. We don’t have much of a gar population here in N. Ga. that I am aware of.
Semper Fi!