Thanks Hunter06FlKy.
Day 3 and 4
The water was calm and clear and we got lots of shooting in.
We packed in the boat and went back to the resort, took a shower and slept.
I woke up when the turkey hunters came back in. Lots of turkeys were around but none were bagged by the group today.
(from left to right. Jim, Marty, Chris, Kevin and Nick)
After many cups of coffee we were off to the lake again.
One of the Bowbash flotilla, that's Chris C. and his son Nick. Note the steep terrain and all the rocks. (We dulled a lot of arrow points.) Their boat is proof that you don't need a jon boat to get the job done.
Jim and Circe the carp-licker on our boat. Note Jim's near perfect Capt'n Morgan stance.
It was breezy and the carp had the mud so stirred up that they were hard to see.
We did get a few carp but my fish of the day was this longnosed gar. According to my very in-accurate scale, it weighed 17lbs 10oz. It sure felt heavy.
I'll also have you know that after this picture was taken, the gar cut me up with it's teeth
and smacked me upside the head and broke my glasses.
Fair is fair I guess.
We went back to the resort ate dinner and told fish stories.
Here's Joe and Chris R. posing with one of the carp they boated that day.
Before we knew it... it was time to go out on the lake again.
Joe rigged up a nifty little 12volt light system to go along the handheld spotlight he was using. He wired up three small halogen bulbs on a piece of sheet metal. It was actually quite brite. (not like our 2600 watts of light powered by our generator.. but still very bright and much cheaper)
We took Chris C. and Nick on our boat that night. I videoed them shooting at carp, hitting some carp and missing many, many carp. Eventually I had to put the camera down and start shooting too. We took well over 200lbs of carp that evening. We had to call it a night, lest we sink the boat.
The carp that were iced down so they could be filleted in the morning.
The carp that weren't iced down. The biggest one I shot is a tad over 16lbs. Jim also got a 16lber.
I wasn't kidding about filleting those carp...
Here's Marty working on a bugle mouth. People from all over the marina came to take pictures of the carp and Marty.
Chris C. de-boned the carp fillets... which is no small task. Then he marinated it in his secret sauce... which I will reveal for a small fee.
While this was going on, the resident marina carp watched and were non-plussed. I contributed to their deliquency by feeding them some sliced turkey. (I ate a salad while the guys cleaned the carp.. heh heh)
Back at the resort...
Nick was in charge of breading the fish.
Kevin got roped into breading the mushrooms... and I still wasn't helping.
I did help eat the carp tho'. It's really quite good. MMmmm.. Even the people from the deli across the street worked up the courage to try it... and then were amazed at how good it was.
Group photo time. (not everybody was around for the photo) Check out the spiffy HuntingNet hats and shirts.
From the left... Kevin, Mike, Marty, Me, Joe, Nick, Chris.
Suddenly it was night time again.
This time we took out Mike and his father-in-law Ramazan. Neither Mike or Ramazan had tried night bowfishing before. In fact Ramazan is from Turkey and had never even shot a bow before. They said they'd just try it for an hour and then come back.....
Three hours later...
They were totally into it. It was great to watch how excited they got each time they saw a carp. In fact I think we'd still be out there if not for the fact that the carp went to deep water around midnight.
Joe shot a 18lb carp that night and won the big carp contest. His prize was a retriever reel and bowfishing arrow set-up from AMS. Great job Joe!