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so whos done it? i'm debating getting a setup, what do you all think?
1)my brother owns a really good bow so all i need is some line and an arrow
2)at this time of year the lake i fish on is heavily weeded and this causes the water around the weeds to be very clear
3)the lake is only 6-10 feet deep and visibility is down to nearly the bottom
4)i can see them cruising by occasionaly (yesterday i spotted one that was damn near 4ft long and about 9in wide)
so should i do it? is it possible to shoot them at those depths or can i only hit them near the surface? that big guy has to be what, 40-50lbs? id love to catch a fish that big. and if i were to go about this, is the best way to chum the waters up really good to attract them, or just sit and wait for them to cruise by?
Dan
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Bowfishing for carp can be alot of fun. As you probably already know, most states do allow it as long as a line is attatched to the arrow.
If you are already a competent Bow and Arrow user, you will only need to make a few slight adjustments for the Carp fishing.
The first thing to get a handle on is good judgement as to how much the water will bend your vision. A Carp on the top of the water will be easiest to hit and a Carp at 6' under will require a little more pre site.
You can easily practice with a gallon jug tied to a rope and filled with holes to allow it to sink and be retrieved after practicing. You will generally aim a little bit lower than you think the straight line is on it.
Give it some time and practice. You will become a great bow angler with time.
Be sure your reel has lots of backing line on it as well. Carp can run far and fast in a short time. Heavier line will slow them down quicker and allow you to fight them without breaking the line.
Dacron line works well for this and is relatively innexpensive compared to normal braided line that is used for fishing. You can purchase 1000yds of dacron for just under 10bucks as opposed to around 100bucks for most braided lines.
Anymore questions?? We are here to help.[cool]
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thanks. good idea on the gallon for practice. as well thanks for the tip on the dacron. after searching the internet for a minute i have lots of choices in that deptarment. i'm not going to pony up for a new reel for this, i was going to go with some really heavy stuff and just pull in the line by hand (the carp wont break the 100+lb stuff, id imagine) should be quite the battle.
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You could get by with less Dacron and no spool if you had a sturdy stake in the ground to tie your line to. Just make sure that the line is tied to the arrow.
Once you shoot the Carp, make sure that you have at least 50 feet of line for it to tug on before hits the end that is tied to the stake. That's when the tug of war starts.[cool]
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actually i'll be in a boat, stalking them from above. ill just tie the line to one of the mounting holes in the bow and hold on tight. the tug-o-war battle will be epic.
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Right on bro. Please be sure to get some pics too. That would be awesome.[cool]
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I use to bowfish with my Compound bow a while back. I still have my bow, it's called a Martin Lynx. It's a stuby bow with a max 100 pull at 65% roll over on the brass cams.
They make a spool just for the bows that replaces the balancer on the front of the stock.
What I found when targeting something in the water is to aim just off the center of the target towards the sun. In other words, if the sun is to the right of the fish, aim just right of center of the fish. From my experiance, the sun throws an illusion opposite of it's rays. Also, don't expect to hit anything much further than a few feet deep. Anything deeper and you risk not getting a good shot and loosing the fish. The same concept as deer hunting. You don't want to take a shot unless you know you can land the fish.
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so you do think 7-8 feet down, right under the boat is too deep? and as far as taking shots unless its a gauranteed shot, i dont think that would be too detrimental here, since the arrow is quickly retreivable, and our lake doesnt have a rocky bottom.
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Unless you can hit them square in the head, just about any fish won't take a liking to being shot with an arrow.
They react bad enough to getting a little hook in the mouth, don't ya think so???[cool]
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[cool] You said a mouth full there!!!!!!!!!!!!! To me gar is one UGLY fish!!!!!! When I was a kid my grandfather took me bream fishing and a man and woman in a 10' jon boat was going down the bayou with their stringer of fish hanging off the side of the boat(in the water). My grandfather pointed behind the boat and an alligator gar was following the boat, trying to get the stringer of fish. You could see his back coming up out of the water. Lesson learned == Do not put fish on stringer to hang in the water. I either put them in the livewell or in an ice chest on ice.
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Ugly indeed. Not all of God's creatures were meant to be pretty.
But.......If prepared properly, Gar can be some good eats. They can make excellent fish Tacos too.[cool]
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[reply]
[cool] You said a mouth full there!!!!!!!!!!!!! To me gar is one UGLY fish!!!!!! When I was a kid my grandfather took me bream fishing and a man and woman in a 10' jon boat was going down the bayou with their stringer of fish hanging off the side of the boat(in the water). My grandfather pointed behind the boat and an alligator gar was following the boat, trying to get the stringer of fish. You could see his back coming up out of the water. Lesson learned == Do not put fish on stringer to hang in the water. I either put them in the livewell or in an ice chest on ice. [/reply]
Last year I had a pearch on a stringer in the mouth of a drainage ditch. I'm fishing away down the bank, and hear this thrashing and splashing. I went to investigate, and a big northern pike has a death-grip on my pearch, trying to pull the whole stringer into the water. Some quick net work, and said pike wound up on the stringer next to the perch[cool]. A new method of live bait fishing maybe?
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Solid advice so far. I haven't done it in quite a while but first things first - get comfortable with the bow and specific fishing arrow(s) on a land target first off. One thing I do recommend is to buy a bow to just fish with since it can be rough on it. Doesn't need to be anything 'fancy' or name brand specific.. just look for a good value. The release should strap your wrist - theres no sense in a loose pistol grip style release since one wrong move will send it to the bottom of the drink... hmmm ..can't think of anything else right now..
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That's great advise on the "wrist mount" release birddog. I didn't even think of that. I actually have the pistol grip style, and I would be affraid to hang too far over the side for fear of loosing it. When I was shooting at fish, it was from a pontoon boat. So, it was no big deal. If I dropped it, it fell on the deck. (and I have dropped it before)
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how about twenty foot of line and a one gallon milk jug tied to the other end...
you could have fun chacin it in your tube....[sly]
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] I've watched guys bowfishing for gar while I was fishing for LMB.