Bowfishing

[richhodg66]

The Long Nose Gar are spawning in my lake. This week is about my favorite time of the year (gives our muzzle loader deer season a good run for its money anyway) I can't remember a year when there have been so many of them, they are just swarming and the water has been at just the right level and clear and calm the past two evenings. I probably shot three dozen or more in the couple of hours I got out this evening. Anybody else out there besides me that does this?

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[dk17hmr]

Not so much anymore, just because I live in the desert now.

I grew up in Michigan and every year, about this time, my buddies and I would start shooting carp. I loved doing it when they were running good.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/dk17hmr/carp2.jpg (http://s48.photobucket.com/user/dk17hmr/media/carp2.jpg.html)

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/dk17hmr/carp1.jpg (http://s48.photobucket.com/user/dk17hmr/media/carp1.jpg.html)

My parents neighbor would take all the youngers I wanted to bring in for him. Use to fillet them, fry, boil, or grill them. He also smoked several...same with suckers he would take anything I didn't want.

[Hamish]

We used to run one day tournaments years ago. The last one we gave away over a ton of carp and buffalo. Haven't poked a hole in a fish in four years, I miss it in the Spring.

[Love Life]

I see delicious Gar balls in your future.

[richhodg66]

Not so much anymore, just because I live in the desert now.

I grew up in Michigan and every year, about this time, my buddies and I would start shooting carp. I loved doing it when they were running good.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/dk17hmr/carp2.jpg (http://s48.photobucket.com/user/dk17hmr/media/carp2.jpg.html)

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/dk17hmr/carp1.jpg (http://s48.photobucket.com/user/dk17hmr/media/carp1.jpg.html)

My parents neighbor would take all the youngers I wanted to bring in for him. Use to fillet them, fry, boil, or grill them. He also smoked several...same with suckers he would take anything I didn't want.

We had a weird carp die off in my lake last summer. KDWP's party line was it was weather conditions that did it and the fish were all from upstream, basically, oxygen distress did it. I called BS at the time, carp are about the toughest fish in the lake and the whole lake was littered with hundreds of dead carp and no other fish. Normally, I start seeing them in mass by late March, I've hardly seen any, though I saw a few today. The carp are pretty consistent shooting through the warm months here usually, Gar for a very short and intense time, but this year has been the best I've seen for them by far.

[richhodg66]

I see delicious Gar balls in your future.

I've eaten them before, and they aren't bad, just a PITA to clean and I like shooting them more than cleaning and cooking them, so most of mine either get kicked back in the lake if I think they can survive the wound (many do, they are tough as nails) or left on the bank.

Carp and Buffalo can be good eating and I hope to shoot a few after the Gar spawn to smoke some of them.

[richhodg66]

Not so much anymore, just because I live in the desert now.

I grew up in Michigan and every year, about this time, my buddies and I would start shooting carp. I loved doing it when they were running good.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/dk17hmr/carp2.jpg (http://s48.photobucket.com/user/dk17hmr/media/carp2.jpg.html)

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f208/dk17hmr/carp1.jpg (http://s48.photobucket.com/user/dk17hmr/media/carp1.jpg.html)

My parents neighbor would take all the youngers I wanted to bring in for him. Use to fillet them, fry, boil, or grill them. He also smoked several...same with suckers he would take anything I didn't want.

That's a nice bow, by the way. I use a take down recurve as well (in the last pic I posted, hard to see). I got an AMS retriever reel when I got serous about it, GREAT piece of gear, I highly recommend them.

[AlaskanGuy]

I have bow fished for pink salmon a bunch of times subsistance.... Till the game warden told me its a no no... Real bummer too, it was such a blast... And a lot harder en it looks when the fish about about 4 to 5 feet down in a river.... The current plays on ya, the ripples play on ya.... The refraction plays on ya.... A buddie of mine likes to go after salmon sharks with a bow... Uses the small bouys to tie on the end of the spool and lets them tire them selves out... I think he got the idea watching jaws too many times...lol... Plus i dont think its legal... Lol

[MaryB]

Pickle the gar, no worry about small bones then they get soft in the vinegar.

[dk17hmr]

Thanks....a really good friend of mine built it for me. Its 65 pounds at 29" shoots a 685gr arrow at 180fps...it will shoot a 350gr out at 235fps.

We are talking about a 70-75 pound long bow for the next build.

[lefty o]

never bow fished them, but for a few years i had both long nose and florida gar in my aquarium. the long nose is for a fish pretty dang intelligent. of all the different game fish, and tropical fish ive had over the years, the long nose gar was without a doubt the coolest of them all.

[starmac]

Gar easy to clean with a sharp hatchet or cleaver and a curved skinning knife.

[Lonegun1894]

I go take a gar here and there, but I only take what I can eat, so usually just take 1-2 of them each time out which is plenty to feed me and my two dogs a meal that day or the next day. I never understood people who kill them for the sake of killing them. They're a great fish to have around.

[s mac]

I don't get to bowfish as often as I would like, but it's a blast. I don't think I ever connected with a skinny gar, lots of carp, suckers. It's also a blast to go froggin with a bow. I shoot a homemade osage longbow, lots of fun.

[blademasterii]

I managed 3 tilapia out of my parents pond last week when I went out to take the truck back after fixing it. 105799

[richhodg66]

I kind of wish we had Tilapia here, they taste real good.

I have a lot to do this weekend, but was thinking about getting stuff together and shooting a big one to filet out. ANybody got some recommendation for cooking it? I've been kind of wanting to try grilling it.

MaryB, I've never canned anything in my life, but have been meaning to try. I actually like carp, smoked or made into patties, the bones are that only real downside and I understad they cook down when you can them like canned salmon. I have a huge pressure cooker I acquired intending to try it someday and the project fell by the way side. Maybe this year.

[Lonegun1894]

My family is from Poland, and carp is considered a delicacy there. I know my mom usually still makes a bit of it for Christmas dinner. I will ask her for her recipes and post what she says so we can see if it is anything different than what everyone is used to. I know one thing she does is make a soup out of it, but I will have to get the recipe.

[starmac]

When I waas commercial carp was a huge pain when they were running, and the only market was down on the coast for crab bait, which wasn't worth hauling a truck load of them. We had one guy that wanted 100 large carp at a time in one month intervals. He would gut and gill them and hang them in a smoke house for 30 days. He claimed (I never actually saw it or ate any of it) that when he took them down, he just shook them and all the meat would fall out of them, with no bones.

[Bad Water Bill]

My family is from Poland, and carp is considered a delicacy there. I know my mom usually still makes a bit of it for Christmas dinner. I will ask her for her recipes and post what she says so we can see if it is anything different than what everyone is used to. I know one thing she does is make a soup out of it, but I will have to get the recipe.

The ONLY recipe I ever heard of for carp.

Place on wooden shingle,marinate for 72 hours then smoke.

When completed throw away the da carp and serve a delicious shingle.:bigsmyl2:

Yes I have been taking those slimy things off of my hook (if they have not swallowed the whole thing) and thrown them on the bank for almost 70 years.

YUCK.

[starmac]

When the carp started running we would probably catch 1000 or more a day, and started throwing them on the bank. Within 3 days we had probably a 1000 or more buzzards roosting in trees on the banks, and anywhere we had thrown fish out would be a 20 foot circle of bare ground with no grass left from the buzzards fighting over the fish. The skeletons looked like something you would see in a cartoon, as they would still be intact, but from head to tail there would not be an ounce of flesh left. We quit that practice in about 3 days. lol

[richhodg66]

When I've been in Baghdad, the waterways are full of common carp just like the ones here. Last time I was there when we were very much more into nation building, a local started a fish market using one of the micro small business grants we did. My buddy was the PAO there and he got to go see the grand opening.

Basically, they'd gut a big carp, splay it out on two skewers, season it and cook it over coals with the skewers stuck in teh ground at a 30 degree angle. I got to eat some and it was darn good.

I like it smoked. We also will boil the meat off those Y bones, mix with egg, Ritz craker crumbs and onion and fry them in patties. Good stuff.

[Lonegun1894]

It seems like carp is one of those fish that you either love or hate, and it really depends on how it is prepared. Then again, I eat gar too, so maybe I'm just weird.

[MaryB]

Carp is okay in spring, once it starts warming up I won't eat it. Lot of people here fish for it early may to put on the smoker, I have also grilled it to get the fat out, tasty stuff and just pick it off the bones with your fingers.

[starmac]

Richdog, that is similar to how we made gar balls, only we cooked them in a pressure cooker to get the meat off the bones.

[TCLouis]

I am betting that most people that hate the taste of carp do so because they were told how bad it as and have never tasted it.

I do miss the days with a solid fiberglass recurve bow and "Bear" tape on bow reel.

I was once up on a creek (Martin's Creek ???) that fed into Cordell Hull lake and the carp were running upstream to spawn.

All one would have had to do was shoot into the water as the carp were literally stacked up in that creek.

Some of the biggest carp I had ever seen too.

A friend and his dad used to gather them in the spring spawning run and pressure can them. He claimed they were great eating.

[Bad Water Bill]

In the fall most fish like the carp go dormant and do not go after food even if it hits them on the head.

When the waters start to warm up spawning seems to be the only thing on their little brain.

Being dormant all winter probably cleanses their body of all of the garbage they have sucked up all summer leaving a clean tasting fish.

Not a proven fact but just my observation of goldfish(yes it is a carp) kept in an unheated tank in a friends garage over the winter.










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[richhodg66]

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that carp can survive water conditions many fish can't, so people see them in muddy, stagnant water. The ones I have taken from big, clear Milford Lake taste fine. There's also a strip of reddish brown meat just under the skin on the fillets that you need to cut off for best taste.

On Fort Sill, they have a species of carp (white amur???) they've put in the ponds to control vegetation and they taste milder and better than the common carp. I shot one that was 31 pounds and change once, got some very big filets off of it, good eating.

[starmac]

They put the white amur (grass carp) in lake conroe to clean up the lake several years back, and when I left Texas they had about taken the lake over. They get very big. I have never eaten them, but some people would trade you pound for pound for catfish.

[richhodg66]

Shortly after the one I mentioned, I shot another that was probably as big, maybe bigger, that went into a roll and actually broke the head off the arrow. Not pulled the head off, broke the fiberglass arrow. I think I'd have a hard time putting one of those over my knee and breaking it in two, never would have guessed a fish could do that in the water.

[MaryB]

Carp have power, they are a ball to catch on 10 pound test in flooded rivers in spring. I have trashed the drag on a couple of reels fighting them.

[richhodg66]

Carp have power, they are a ball to catch on 10 pound test in flooded rivers in spring. I have trashed the drag on a couple of reels fighting them.

The only fish I ever had break a rod was a carp, and not a very big one either. A lot of fun to be had with a fairly small hook, a piece of split shot and a can of grocery store corn. I've found they make one very hard pull for deep water, once you get them turned, the fight is usually over pretty fast. Strong as they are, they don't jump around much and don't seem to have the stamina. It's tough for them to spit a hook once set too, their mouths are pretty tough.

[gkainz]

Trying for trout last week but all we could turn up was one carp.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/26/nunuvu6a.jpg

[starmac]

Wow, I didn't realize that carp even lived in water cool enough for trout.

[Southern Son]

I find it interesting how different we look at stuff on different islands. Here in Oz it is against the law to even put a Carp back into the water. Even if you kill it, putting it back will get you fined (potentially). Same with Tilarpia. There is a company down in South NSW or North Victoria that electro fishes the carp out of rivers, creeks and irrigation channels, and then turns them into fertilizer. I was talking to a Pommy bloke once who was telling me all about "Course Fishing" and how a good sized carp was quite a prize. He looked quite shocked when I told him that we just killed them and threw them in a bin or way back up in the scrub (not even allowed to throw them on the bank). I have tried eating them, but as someone has already suggested, if they come out of dirty water, they taste dirty, and here in Oz, they make all our rivers muddy by sucking up the bottom and causing banks to collapse and what have you. I would love to Bow Fish for them, but lucky for me there are none in the Fitzroy River, just Barramundi and stuff like that.

[theperfessor]

I was taught to remove the strip of dark meat that runs along the middle of the fish. When we caught carp we ended up filleting them and then cutting away the "mud vein", leaving four boneless fillet strips that were usually rolled in corn meal, salt, and pepper and fried. Good eating!

[blademasterii]

Any one have any favorite tips? I was just looking for new points because last time I just bought a handfull of blank shafts and need points. I was looking at the cajun archery sting a ree points. I can get them for around 9.00 each shipped. I would like the ams grapple, but I don't like it 20.00 worth. I've lost two arrows already so I don't feel like having a 40.00 arrow that I might lose.

[s mac]

I made my own fish points by taking 125 grain field point, the style you use on wood shafts, that require a taper on the shaft. Drilled a hole through the field point,use a stiff wire,ie a antennae off a car, cut a piece approx 3 inches long and bend a sweep in the process of inserting. It works great, low cost redneck fish point. You do want to try and leave your center bend in kind of a rounded bend, to keep it from rotating.

[richhodg66]

Don't even waste time with anything except Muzzy tips. After trying quite a few (and I bowfish on rocky lakes, so it's hard on points) the Muzzys are so much better than anything else it's all I'll use. They make two different points; a gar point and a carp point, supposedly, one penetrates tough fish better, one goes through but doesn't tear out as easily. I've found the carp points work better on both than the gar points so that's what I'd use.

I use the AMS slides to secure the line to the arrow, that way, everything stays forward of the bow to prevent snap backs which can be dangerous. I usually epoxy the heads on, then drill through the ferrule and shaft and run a piece of copper rod through it and peen it down on both sides. Thus far, I haven't had a fish pull one off since I started doing that. The slides also keep the line from going through the fish with the arrowhead, which may not seem like a big deal, but gar scales can cut through some pretty tough line quickly.

These are the slides I use, and after trying several different methods, this is the way to rig arrows, haven't lost many since switching to these, in fact, I can't remember losing any.

http://www.backwaterbowfishing.com/onlinestore/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=4327

[Hamish]

Big plus one on the Muzzy points! Nothing else ever stood up to the abuse. The only problem was eventually breaking the wire after many, many fish. I really like the looks of the slide in Rich's post, that's a big improvement.

[richhodg66]

The slides are both safer and better. Everything starts in front of the bow and then moves to the rear of the arrow after release to minimize pulling the arrow off course. The first year I bowfished, the learning curve was steep to say the least and I lost a LOT of arrows. After I figured out that the gar scales were cutting the line. I started using steel catfish leaders and that helped, but the slides are much better still.

I wish I knew what Muzzy makes those points out of, but I've had severa that I've used a lot and when I missed fish, given the rocky lake I'm on, drove those things at right angles as hard as a 55lb recurve will into solid limestone and I swear, it doesn't even dull them appreciably. I've broken other heads pretty quick, and even some of the more expensive ones won't take punishment and anchor fish like those Muzzys do.

[blademasterii]

The slides and the muzzy points is what I started with so I guess i'll go back to that. I know they work.

[dk17hmr]

Muzzy's and sliders is all I ever used.....

[blademasterii]

Got a chance to go again this past weekend. This was the biggest fish I managed to stick. ok well it has decided that jpg is not a valid picture format for uploading.. so I guess you will have to use your imagination. Stoned a 16 or 17 inch sheepshead sunday afternoon off a dock. http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn276/blademasterii/20140608_114123.jpg (http://s306.photobucket.com/user/blademasterii/media/20140608_114123.jpg.html) For reference my shoe measures 13".

[richhodg66]

What kind of fish is that?

[Bad Water Bill]

Just ANOTHER Florida "ghost fish" stories.:bigsmyl2:

[blademasterii]

There I fixed it. :D

[richhodg66]

Looks kind of like the freshwater drum we have here. Good eating and strong fighters.