Hi, I am just getting back into bowfishing, I was informed by a gentleman that I can't shoot fiberglass arrows out of my compound as they will occationally shatter? I use to shoot fiberglass out of my recurve, but when I switched years ago I went to a 2417 with a 2117 shaft inside of it it tipped with a fish head. Should I go back to the double alum? or can I shoot fiberglass out of my compound.

Specs are
Alpine Siverado
70# 80% let off
29" draw

Thanks

Fiberglass arrows won't shatter out of a compound. At 70# you'll be getting a lot of flex though. I'd suggest dropping the weight down as much as the bow will let you. Check out the Muzzy Carbon Mag arrows too. They are solid carbon arrows and are stiffer than regular shaft.

There are also combination carbon/fiberglass arrows made by Cajun Archery that are stiffer than regular fiberglass arrows.

Welcome back to bowfishing!

Thanks much. I'll look at those arrow set ups. I think I'll be dedicating my old bow to bow fishing rig, and I can get it down to around 60#. Now I just gotta wait for the water to warm up for the carp to start moving.

i shoot fiberglass arrows out of my bow(thats all ive ever shot) and have never had one blow up on me. and my bow is set at like 58-60 pounds

All we shoot is compounds and fiberglass arrows. My buddy shoots 70lbs and has got 3 fish on an arrow many timesbefore and hes never blown a fiberglass arrow up and I've seen him hit plenty of rocks dead nutz and never had one break. WCL

what weight of arrows work good at 80#

I would highly recomend not shooting 80#. If you are on fish all day you are gonna be tired real quick. Also less lbs makes for a faster shooter and you won't be shooting through fish. Shooting through fish sucks because you have to waste time trying to tread your arrow back through the holes. A real time waster when your shootin tournys and gets real anoying to deal with. I guess if you had to shoot 80lbs I would say get either some carbon reinforced glass arrows or alumiglass arrows or even the full carbon arrows. WCL

As Wing said, I wouldn't want to shoot an 80# compound for fish. (this from a guy who usually shoots a 70# recurve) I can only imagine how much time you'll spend digging your arrow out of the bottom unless you're shooting in very deep water.
As far as arrows go, no one spine tests arrows any more 'cept a few of us old guys. but we took a selection of fiberglass fish arrows and ran them through my spine tester. The flimsy-est of the group measured 85# plus. The heavier ones were in the 110 to 120# range. We did not try the Cajun "yellow jacket" which is supposed to be heavier spined or the Muzzy "predator" arrows which is a fiberglass arrow inside an aluminum shaft.

All that to say, I wouldn't be afraid to shoot a fiberglass fish arrow out of any poundage bow. I'd be more afraid of the plastic nock breaking.

I've been bowfishing for many years and I'm pretty rough on fish arrows... most of my bowfishing is concentrated during the sucker run in the shallows on the Black River in Wisconsin, its very shallow water and full of rocks which are very hard on arrows andI splinter and shatterfiberglass arrows quite often on impact,I've never hadone shatter coming out of the bow though, in fact alot of times I keep shooting arrows after they've beensplintered and still dont have a problem with them coming apart coming out of the bow, but then again I dont run anywhere near 70lbs...

shooting in the rocks like I often do I shatter arrows so bad sometimesthat it shears the points right off the end of the arrow so I usually run a light weight cable system that I make myself on my arrowsjust to keep from loosing my points, when one starts to splinter on the end I usually just pull the tip, cut it down some, reattach the tip and rerun the cable, until it gets too short or too badlysplinteredto keep using anyway...
the only points I've found so far that take the abuse of the many direct rock impacts that I put them through is the warheads, everything else I've tried gets demolished fairly quick

BCMuleyhunter, About waiting on the water to warm up. Dont wait too long our club has already shot over 400 carp since February. Although this time of the year you have to do it at night. GOOD SHOOTING