mossbergman11

i have a pse silverhawk bow that i dont want for deer anymore. how can i convert this bow into one for bowfishing? i also need some help finding places to bowfish and how to bowfish becasuse i have never done it before

carpsniper

Mossberg, Welcome to the addiction.

Well...First you'll need a reel. I would strongly suggest an AMS retriever reel. It mounts to your sight/quiver mounting holes. That's OK, you won't need the sight or quiver while you're bowfishing. Most shots are close and most folks shoot instinctive.

Next you'll need a rest that will hold a heavy fiberglass fish arrow.

That brings us to the arrow. Absolutely, positively - do NOT use an arrow W/O a safety slide on it. Make sure you get at least two arrows. You probably won't lose one with the AMSset-up. But if you do, it stinks to have to stop when you lose an arrow.

As far as where to go, I'll let one of the OH guys take that one. For general info check out the bowfishing basics article at the top of this forum. It will give you a few more options on ways to set-up your PSE.

One other note, before you go, have a plan for how you will use/dispose of your fish.

Good luck, have fun and be safe.

wabi

The silverhawkshould be a good bow to use. Ibought one recently to try for bowfishing. I just put a Bear Weather Reston it and shoot "instinctively". I also have a PSE Kingfisher T/D Recurve for bowfishing.

I'd start off with an inexpensive outfit and see how you like it. You can always upgrade to a more expensive reel later and then you will have the cheap one as a spare. An example isshown at:
http://www.bowhunterssuperstore.com/bohning-bowfishing-p-2961.html
Or if you have an old spincast reel (heavy duty) you can buy a reel seat that screws in the stabilizer hole.
http://www.bowhunterssuperstore.com/cajun-archery-aluminum-spinning-reel-mount-p-4721.html
The only drawback to the spincast type reel is you have to remember to release the line before you shoot, or things can gettoo exciting.
A couple fish arrows with the safety slides or a cabling system are basic necessities to have along.
If I'm right about your location you would be north of Cinci. Not familiar with that area, but some of the big lakes would be a good starting point. Look at the inlet areas of the lakes for largeareas of shallow weedy water for carp.

mossbergman11

so how much can i get one of these reels for? also where can i get bowfishing stuff? where can i find places to bowfish? what do i do once i shot the fish and reel it in? do i need a boat?
sorry about all the questions i just dont know anything

millerhunter13

i have been bowfishing only once, but you dont need a boat, if you could find a local creek, you could find garr probaly, not sure if you have garr up there, and you can get bowfishing stuff at basspro.

Bulzeye

http://www.amsbowfishing.com/

Retriever:


Don't need a boat if you can find some shoreline to walk where there are legal fish within range (generally only rough fish like carp, gar, etc are allowed to be taken by bow). Many bowfishermen have never done it from a boat. Just make sure to respect private property and local laws -- some municipalities do not allow shooting a bow within city limits.

Put them on a stringer, in a barrel, or on a wagon. You may wish to bop them on the head to avoid having them flopping around on the bank scaring away other fish and possibly getting back into the water.
Some can be eaten, but all make great fertilizer. Gar are boneless, but the skin is so tough you'll want tin snips to cut them open.

See the fish cleaning instruction linkson the left side the the Illinois Bowfishers' home page...
http://www.illinoisbowfishers.com/

Good luck.
-Bulz

mossbergman11

so you dont eat the fish or what do you do with them? im confused about this

carpsniper

I like to tell people we eat all the fish we shoot. It's just that 99% of them we turn into corn and tomatoes first.

Seriously, of the rough fish we shoot, gar are my favorite. The Silver and Bighead carp are real good also. Buffalo fish are very similar. Common carp are my least favorite and the most plentiful. They easily make up 80% or better of our take.
The problem is two fold, one is,we couldn't begin to eat all the fish we get. The second is that we are rarely want to stop fishing to clean fish that are not that great in the first place and are time consuming, and by the time we get home they're not really very appetizing looking.
For bowfishing supplies check out F&D Archery, Bowfishing Extreme and Backwater Bowfishing. These guys do a lot to help bowfishing and we try to support them whenever we can.

HNI_Christine

Hmm.. if we had a barrel of fish that we wanted to eat we'd take the time to clean them or bring a cooler. We take a gigantic cooler when we go down to KY. We bring back lots of bighead fillets and down there you can bowfish for tasty paddlefish and catfish too.

Other than a few taken in the Spring when the water is cool, we don't eat a lot of common carp. We give them away or use them for fertilizer. We do have some really great tomato and squash plants.

Read this if you have time: http://www.huntingnet.com/fieldjournal/fieldjournal_detail.aspx?nID=346

mossbergman11

so you dont eat the grass carp?