A TikTok of Alberto Flores pulling a huge alligator gar from a Dallas river is making the rounds. The river is a key drinking water source for Houston.
A TikTok of Alberto Flores pulling a huge alligator gar from a Dallas river is making the rounds. The river is a key drinking water source for Houston.
©Daniela White Images/Getty ImagesIf you’ve spent any substantial amount of time in Dallas, you’ve maybe heard tall tales about Trinity River and the deformed monstrosities that spawn in its polluted and murky waters–fish with two heads, Godzilla-like mutant amphibians, that sort of thing.
The waterway—which cuts through the heart of Dallas and serves as a key source of drinking water for Houston—is indeed notoriously filthy; its waters are so polluted that it was once named the “River of Death” because it was so choked with sewage and slaughterhouse waste and because more than 1 million fish perished in the Trinity’s waters in a 15-year period.
As previously covered by Chron, decades of pollution and mass death of other species have yet to vanquish this uniquely ancient and resilient fish native to Texas, Louisiana and a handful of southern and lower Midwest states. A prehistoric river fish with a thin, pointed snout resembling an alligator’s has weathered multiple state-led culling efforts in the past century and continues to troll the depths of waterways like the Trinity across the state.
The latest Texan encounter a grand example of this unique species is lberto Flores, master fisherman and now-viral TikToker.
Flores posted a TikTok on Sunday that starts with him tossing two massive pieces of bait into the waters of the Trinity River. Seconds later, the shot cuts to Flores wrestling with his reel and telling viewers that he “just hooked up to a gar… let’s see if I can’t get him in.”
And get him in he does. The TikTok cuts to Flores holding a beefy, five-foot-plus-long fish with a pointed head and snout in his arms as it thrashes about. “Alligator gar… put up a beautiful fight, a beautiful fish,” Flores says before releasing the giant back into the water.
The TikTok has amassed nearly 74,000 likes, 1,000 comments and nearly 3,000 shares as of publication. Commenters didn’t waste time slamming the Trinity River for birthing the monster: “If you eat the fish in the trinity river you grow extra arms,” one TikToker wrote. Another TikToker (who apparently didn’t know much about the Trinity) asked “that’s good eating why did you put it back in?” Flores didn’t mince words: “we don’t eat fish out the trinity river,” he responded.
