Well, I live along the sangamon river and have land over along the Illinois river, above the Lagrange Lock and Dam. I have a great deal of intrest in this bowfishing rave, but I have no idea where to start, I don't have a ton of money, but I have a spare bow that I would like to rig up for bowfishing. Any help or responses would be appriciated. Thanks
DS

Pike County eh? Take me deer hunting and I'll get you all set-up for bowfishing.

Seriously, tho'. You can get set-up pretty inexpensively if you already have a bow.

I'd start with a retriever reel (most foolproof). They cost about 60.00.
Or you can start with a spincast and a reel-seat. (cheaper to start with, more expensive in the long run (in my-not-so-humble-opinion))

Get at least twodecent bowfishing arrows.They're about 10 bucks each. (depending, of course, on where you buy them)

Here are some places to look for equipment if your local archery shop doesn't carry bowfishing stuff. (and if they don't, tell them they should)

http://www.fdarchery.com

http://www.amsbowfishing.com

http://www.backwaterbowfishing.com

There are more online dealers out there, those are just the ones I could think of at this very moment.

Well Deer if you have the bow yo can get going fairly cheap you can use a retriever reel like Christine said or a zebco or a shakespear synergy whatever u prefer go to sullys bowfiishing and order line and arrows there if you want and your set under 80.00 bucks and your good to go....

Hey DS, where on the Sangamon are you? I'm over by Springfield. The Sangamon here has gar, bigheads, silvers, grass carp, common carp and buffalo. I've been shooting from the banknear bridges where I can get to the river. Haven't seen much yet this spring, but hope this week will warm up andbring some up. There should be lots of fish west of here.

Hey Rick just curious is there any size to the bigheads there in the river yet judging from the last time we shot over by decatur on the sangamon they were 15 to 20 pounds then thats been 4 years ago or so......

I've only shot a couple in the Sangamon and they were in the 8-10 lb range. That was last summer. I'm sure there are bigger ones tho. They tend to hold around the current breaks a ways out from the bank making for some long shots. I'm gonna try the heavy bow on them this year. I'll keep the forum posted when they start showing up.