09/10/2026
Caleb Willhite Caylan Willhite
Kayle Ward has been a full-time crappie guide in south Oklahoma and North Texas for eight years. His “Reelin’ Them In Guide Service” has a stellar reputation, and Ward is in the upper ranks of tournament crappie fishing.
He won the 2025 Crappie Masters National Championship last September on Lake Eufaula, Oklahoma. But he got the itch for something larger.
“I started seeing huge alligator gar with sonar while crappie fishing on Lake Texoma,” Ward tells Wired2fish. “I discovered some areas of the lake that had a lot of big gator gar and began trying to catch them.”
Fishermen snag the gar, and Ward releases all the big ones he catches and measures with clients.
“At first I was just sort of playing around with it,” said the 38-year-old guide from Mead, Oklahoma. “I mentioned alligator gar fishing and how big they were to some crappie clients and other anglers, and people really got into it wanting to catch ‘em.
“Over the last couple months it’s been incredible, and the gar we’re catching are huge.”
In recent weeks Ward has boated and released many gar measuring over 6 feet long.
“We’ve been blessed to land multiple fish every time with clients and had numbers of gar measuring 7 feet long or better,” he said. “One giant fish measured 7-feet, 11-inches, with a 43-inch girth that we estimated weighed about 230 pounds.
“The state record fish was 8-feet, 1-inches long and with a slightly larger girth and that record fish weighed 256 pounds.”
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✍️: Bob McNally
