in my opinion I'd advise you to steer away from the retriever reels(AMS)...



for one, I'd had several and didnt think much of any of them, the only real advantage they have IMOcomes from the slotted retriever model, and only because its capable of playing out floats for big game fish like gator gars and actual gators themselves, but all the ones I've had and seen/heard about have had their fair share of problems and disadvantages and for general bowfishing I've never seen them work that well...
and its not just me... theres been alot of them floating around the area here over the yearsused by my friends and different aquatances and I cant really think that I've ever heard of anyone thatreallythought much of them, or had much good to say about them, or kept one for long...

in fact I just gave one awaynot that long ago that I'd had laying around forever(that was given to me by my brother years ago because he didnt like it either...)



IMO if lake/river bowfishing for carp/suckers is the main goal you'd be FAR better off with a heavy duty reel like a zebco 808/888 and some quality braided line, I have three main setups at the moment, all three have 888's with braided nylon line and all three couldnt be more dependable and user friendly
they're also cheaper and pretty much guaranteed to work well, where as the retriever is usually a love/hate relationship which(from my dealings anyway)usallyends up being ahate one, they're also kind of costly, and a little pricey to gamble on whether your going to like it or not...

another plus for the closed faced reel is thatif you so choose somewhere along the line you can swap lines, mount it on a pole and have an awesome heavy duty fishing rig for catfish or whatever...

that would be hard to do with anAMS reel...




the other negative thing about the retriever reel is that with its trigger and general layout its designed more to be operated from the riser of a vertical bow, and unless they've developed a new model specifically for crossbows(I have no idea)I dont see them operating very well on a CB, without some work anyway...






just my own personal opinion on it though...