i am looking to get started into bowfishing and wondered what reel you guys could suggest, i will be using an Oneida Tomcat.

Well, I am realitivly new to using a reel but I love my new AMS Retriever. I used to just coil the line and leave it on the deck of the boat or front of the canoe. It would always knot up after a few shots. This Retriever I just bought is amazing. I love it. Can't seem to figure out why the line doesnt tangle inside the bottle but he!!, if it works the way it does who cares. Never used the zebco's or others so I dont know about them. Ill stick to what works great for me.

I use both the AMS Retriever as well as a Zebco 808. My bowfishing consists of relativly small fish such as Tilapia. Therefore I lean more towards my Zebco, it has a much faster retrieve to put me back on site faster. But for bigger fish the AMS Retriever will allow the user to utilize much stronger line to retieve larger fish such as some of the Carp and Gar I have seen. It is all about personal prefrence. Try everything you can and come up with your own conclusion as to what you like and what works for your specific application. Good Luck and welcome to the Bowfishing (Addiction) World!

Either the retriever or a closed face reel like a zebco will work well.
If you wan tto really save some bucks, you can buy a hand-wound drum that you put the string on by hand, but they are way slow. It was good enough for me for the first 15 years, but now that I've tried the reels, I've found that hand-winding is not the way to go.

I finally gave in and bought an AMS retriever this year and have no regrets what so ever.

I have both; a recurve with a Shakespeare, and a compound with a Retriever. I like them both in their own ways. I usually shoot the recurve, so the closed-faced reel gets more use, but then again, I used the Retriever for 8-10 years before, and I never complained. Heck, try 'em both! They both have their advantages.

the zebco 808 and 888 work extremely well no problems here with them......