My First Bowfishing Kill
I have been bow hunting a couple dozen times in my life. Prior to age 30, all of those hunts were for deer or pigs and other than grazing the shoulder of a doe in high school, I never hit anything.
I had no intentions of resuming archery after putting it down when I left for college. In part due to a lack of hunting opportunity and a lack of general interest. One day I was fishing behind my apartment and a young man, recognizing me as a redneck and presumably one himself, struck up a conversation, as rednecks tend to do.
The young man told me that he too fished the particular fork of the Trinity River that I was fishing and on occasion he also did some bow fishing. I told him that I didn't have a lot of interest in bow fishing but if he was going that evening, I didn't have anything else to do and would go with him.
He mentioned he had been trying to get a shot on video and upon learning that I had a GoPro was more than willing to take me up on my self invite.
That night after dark, the young man, his friend, and I set out with a very bad flashlight and a decent bow. Being the gracious hosts that they were, the high school boys let me take the first half dozen shots which all missed embarrassingly.
I thanked them both for their generosity but insisted that all future shots that evening be taken by them. I watched as Justice (the high school redneck brother from another mother) shot gar after gar, and was deeply impressed with his marksmanship. At the end of the hunt we (they) had killed a good number of gar and grass carp and I was hooked.
About 6 months later, after taking back a bow I had given my dad, I decided to pick back up bowfishing to pass the time until dove season.
Because my bow is a primitive single piece long bow, it is not well-suited for the type of attachments and accessories typically used in bowfishing. I didn't want to fish with no gear so I made the mistake of going to Bass Pro Shops and buying the cheapest bow fishing combo they sold.
The first night I took it out I could tell the difference in quality between the Sage Recurve my friend had let me shoot and the Cajun Stick I had just purchased. Shortly out of the package a plastic component on the riser broke. The bow was still functional, but it looked bad and was a good indication of the performance to come.
My buddy Ty and I took the bow up and down the Elm Fork and missed shooting opportunity after shooting opportunity, and on the few occasions we were able to get a shot off, missed the fish due to equipment or user error. We ended up with nothing. Frustrated I returned the bow and decided to instead spend $159 on an AMS bow fishing retriever (which was $50 more than I had paid for the complete bowfishing kit) and mount it on an existing recurve.
That turned out to be a good purchase. The next two times I went out, the bow and retrieving mechanism performed flawlessly. I still didn't kill anything because I was hunting solo and every time I'd spotlight a fish, rather than immediately shooting, I'd try to position the spotlight between my legs and bunny hop into position.
I decided to keep pressing and went to Academy to buy a good set of headlamps. I attached one to my head, and one on the riser/lower limb connection point.
My third trip solo with a proper bow and quality head lamp made all the difference. I still missed fish, but because the lighting was adequate, when I finally came upon a big grass carp just off the bank, I was able to draw and accurately release and kill my first fish.
Lessons learned:
Always have the right equipment. It's cheaper in the long run even if its more expensive today.
Bowfishing is hard, and to be effective you have to practice.
