Archery for waterfowl
 

I was watching the outdoor channel the other day when a show came on where a guy was hunting ducks in the water with a bow. I checked the laws in my state and what do you know, its legal in Illinois. Now that got me thinking and now I'm wondering if any of you have ever tried hunting waterfowl with archery gear? I don't mean the occasional potshot at a stupid bird, I mean setting the decoys out and shooting at what lands.

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Not yet but I have thought about it for geese! That would be so cool to bag a limit of geese with your bow.

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Wounder how many arrows a person might loose??

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Traditional equipment and cedar arrows. They will float but it would be a helluva, walk/boattrip around to pick them all up...I'll stick with my shotgun for now.:D

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

:D lmao. I couldn't afford an afternoon hunt.

Are you talking about shooting them on the ground or while they're airborne?

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Foofoo arrows and bird pionts will not go to far. I have killed a few birds with my bow. WAS a bet took a ton of shoots lot of flushes to finaly kill 3 birds. I think ducks would be eazyer than upland game birds.At least you get to see them coming and get ready.I do not hunt ducks at all but I would try to bow them.May just have to do this next year :}

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

ELKINMTCWB, I do hunt waterfowl. Do you think that a Foofoo arrow with bird points keep enough speed and have enough KE for waterfowl. I don't know? But I do know that both ducks and geese are tough birds to knock out of the air/kill with anything but the best shotgun loads. I was thinking along the lines of a big expandable broadhead, and a very fast arrow? Don't carbon arrows float too?

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Alright guys one thing I found very interesting is that carbon arrows float!

Last year me and a buddy tried it. We are going to do it again this year. I only got to goa couple times and didn't get any shots. However, my friend lives on the lake and he got 5 geese. His average shot was about 40 yards. Two were a "Two-fer" He blew through one and stuck the second one a little way behind it. ANd his best shot was 45 yards out of the air. The arrow blew right through and was floating behind it about 50 yards in the water. All I got was a muskrat. But he was walking and at 70 yards. (I needed the fly tying material) Hopefully I will get more time to go this year. It is fun times. Ducks are a little trickier though. We havn't tried them yet. :D;)

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

I don't think flu-flus would work to well on geese and ducks either. They are tough.

We used about any broadhead we had laying around, but mainly gators and tekans.

We used Bowtech Patriot and Extreme with ICS 400 carbon arrows.

One was shooting 280 and the other 295.

Yep, carbons float:D

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

i guess u guys call them fu-fu arrows. but they dont go that far do to there fletchin which is BIG but they do decrease ur accuracy

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

I will allso see if I get time to give it a try. 40 yards is a bit far for foofoos. I may try cutting the foofoo down alittle.Can you hide in a blind and get a closer shot on ducks and geese? [Sorry to be so dumb on water fail] I am 35 years old and have shoot only a few a real long time ago.It seemed real eazy then.

Me not knowing how hard ducks are to kill may make my trip a no win one. mmmmmmmm I think I have a plan. I will buy a few ducks and geese and see what the bird point dose to them :} I sure know that it breaks bones in phesants and grouse. I soot a lot of grouse each year with my bow.[ but they are on the ground] The 3in bird point is quite devistating.I allways get boken wings or necks.

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I would let them land then spook them up and shoot just as they were off the water. I think this would make for more kills. As long as they are off the water it is legal right?

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There isn't any law saying that you can't shoot them on the water. Its just not very sporting, but that is with shotgun, not a bow. In my eyes any waterfowl kill with a bow is sporting and fair!

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

I've checked the laws here in Illinois over and over and there is no requirment for either waterfowl or upland birds that they be in the air first before being shot. So I would venture to say, yes you can hit them when they are on the water or walking on land. I'd check with the laws of your state but here in Illinois you can do it.
As far as arrows go, I'm not going to try cedar. It's my understanding that water does bad things to the straitness of wooden arrows. Carbon arrows will most definetly float. I just tried it in my tub and the hollow tubes float pretty well as long as you use a very light broadhead. The lighter the better. Retrieving the arrows after a miss (or a pass through hit) is going to be tricky as my dog would probably make a chew toy out of any stick I put in the water. Not to mention you may hit a log or mud under the water and never find that arrow again.
My yet untried solution is to use a bowfishing rig with light deer hunting arrows. Let's face it, no bone on a bird is going to stop an arrow from doing a complete pass through. If you have a string tied to one end it's going to go right on through the bird and allow you to retrieve the bird and arrow togther. The string will probably mess with the light arrows flight a bit but not enough if you keep the range under 30 yards. Around here the suburban golf course geese won't move unless you kick them in the butt first and the Mallards aren't much better. Getting close is no problem.
I'm not too worried about the arrow not killing fast enough, it will take out a 20+ pound turkey pretty quick so a -10 pound duck or goose should be easy.
Al this is untried but I'm going to give it a try this fall and post how I do.

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Sounds like fun, but I would probaly starve.

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

That sounds like a good idea Max Dog. You might try some light weight kevlar line. You get a pass thru and you might get to fly that sucker like a kite until it expiers!

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Me too!:D

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

LOL!!!!!!

Like a kite.

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

I've never heard or even thought about bow hunting waterfowl. But I have heard and watched on TV some guys bow hunting for pheasants........wonder if anybody has ever tried tossing arrows at a quail!! LOL

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

Most of the birds we go after are on the ground, or water. Taking them out of the air is tough and I am stingy with my arrows. My friend shoots them out of the air though. He has more money to burn on arrows. I can't wait to give it another go this year. :D

RE: Archery for waterfowl
 

We hunt 3 different golf courses each fall to keep the resident geese in check. It's a lot of fun and I've yet to have a single place say outright "no" as they all hate the geese. They get "wise" to the deal pretty fast though .. and it makes for a lot of fun trying to stalk them from the wood line and take them off the fairways.

We also hunt a few farms the same way for geese, usually the early season as it is great pre-deer season practice and we have 5 a day limits. I would use my normal gear for land and water shots as they can be tough to kill, plus as someone said, carbons float. The trick is not shoot to steeply down .. or they'll bury in the bottom.

The "coolest" move I've seen pulled, and I think I posted this last year, was watching a flcok of geese we never could get within 200 yards of, get outwitted by an old timer with a long bow. He pretended his bow was a metal detector and he took about 20 minutes to get within range before smoothly knocking an arrow and taking a huge Greater canada at about 20 yards.

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God, there are geese around here each fall that you can walk within 10 yards off without them flying. Always the early season ones and they just land in the pastures and hayfields and start grazing. I'm sure they would catch on to it real fast but who knows. Didn't have too many come in this past fall but in 2003 it was not uncomon to have 40 or so geese in the pasture right by my house. Hmmm...