carptracker

Took my girls out on their first bowfishing trip recently. We saw a lot of fish, but didn't shoot any (even when i was shooting, which was not often, because the girls mainly had the bows, and because I'm pretty much a newbie too, and a lousy shot.) The bows are pretty light weight recurves, but the girls (14 and 15 year-old) have trouble pulling them back. They also did a lot of dropping the arrows off the bows. (They are not archers - one of them shot a bow and arrow in gym some, is all.)

Questions - does anyone have any tips to help out with kids that have trouble getting the full draw? Can you put a whisker biscuit rest on a recurve? Does that make sense at all? It seems to me like it would help them keep the arrow straight and on the rest and not drop it off as much, anyway. Another post below makes me think that it might help some with those funky shots when the arrow does not hit the water straight.

carptracker

Also, one of my retrievers is a slotted retriever, which is a pain in the tokus when you don't need it for that purpose, and a complication my girls really don't need. I was going to find something like a piece of plastic to screw down over the slot, but I wondered if anyone else has done this before and had a good suggestion? Do I need to make part of the plastic actually go into the slot to make up for the width of the housing?

Fishhunter

Duane, tell them not to pull with the finger above the arrow. Might even have them place all fingers under the arrow. Sometimes I'll pull more with my upper finger and it lifts the arrow right off. Also cant the bow (turn it sideways a little).

Your bows are just fine for bowfishing. Still the same strings I made for them? The girls will get to where they can pull the bows back - just a little practice and muscle buid-up.

You can make a rest out of plumbers putty or quicksteel, which helps keep the arrow on.

Can't help much with the slotted.

Still need bows for that trip you auctioned?

carptracker

Thanks, Chris. I like that avatar picture, by the way.

I will probably still want to use the bows (although the auction included only two people shooting). Incidentally, the husband of the couple that purchased the trip died of cancer a couple of weeks ago, so that has made things a bit weird. I have not talked to the wife, but I did talk to the pastor about it, and he said he thinks that she will want to take her grandkids out. I think I'm going to borrow the hockey helmets again for this, with the kids involved.

Also, I will be in Canada from the fourteenth through the twenty-second, and I am extremely busy until then. I fly into STL from Canada at 12:30 in the morning on the twenty-second, then drive to Columbia, then go with my son to drop him off at Springfield at MSU for the fall semester. Going to be a long day, especially since my first meeting on the 21st starts at 7AM. After that, I hope things will slow down a bit, and I can get some bowfishing in. Last week was vacation, so I am backlogged a bit, and a bit nuts right now. Climbed a mountain with my youngest daughter. I've done that with each of my kids when they turned 14. That was probably my last mountain, though. Getting to be too old for that stuff.

HNI_Christine

A lightweight compound that has let-off sometimes helps with kids who are having trouble reaching anchor point with a recurve. (that roll-over is a nice carrot to get them to draw it back all the way) Maybe one of those rubber band bow exercisers would help thembuild up some strength. Don't let them over do it tho'.
I shot a 40+ lb recurve when I was a kid but now my shoulder is so screwed up and painful that I can hardly sleep. I blame being over-bowed for most my life and the fact that I'm now old. [&o]

Slotted retrievers are great for when you need a float. They're incredibly annoying at all other times. Using the mudkat extension to keep the line out in front helps a bit.

I switched to a whisker biscuit for a rest and love it. You can buy just the biscuit part and epoxy it in place.

bowman15

Hey Duane, that \Fishhook rest is a good one also and will help with some of your problem. They're tough and (most importantly) inexpensive.

And Christine's right; she's old.

carptracker

I'm still not certain how I would mount either one of those rests to a recurve. I might try putting a blob of epoxy on the edge of the rest part of the bow, but I don't know if it would help the girls much. They just need more practice, although I don't know when they will be able to get it. We are pretty busy these days. We did get out for an hour today to a local conservation area and pick berries for an hour, and I took along the ultralight to see if a tiny pond near the berry patch held any fish. Dang - I caught about ten pounds of bass in twenty casts, fish up to 2.5 pounds. Not sure how such a tiny pond could hold so manynice fish. And we came home with a gallon of blackberries. Nice