I am chompin at the bit here to get out. My boat is madder than hell at me for leavin her in the vacant hog barn all winter, I can just tell. As soon as I can convince two partners to split the gas and get a semi warm night out....I am headin to KY Lake ASAP. Anyone got any plans for this year? IL Flying Silvers with Chris Brackett in July. KY Lake Grassies and Bigheads all summer. Possibly another trip to the gulf for flounder and rays. Might enter a few tournaments this year just to test the waters and see how we could do competitively, but only for fun. I mentioned a while back, showing some pics of my bow renovation...well I finally got around to it. I painted it myself, and clear coated over it...all krylon paint, pretty durable and when it finally rubs off I can just sand it and repaint. Replaced every single bolt in the bow with a stainless steel counterpart...no more rust, even on accessories. Hooked up the retrievers with a dovetail mounting system to make taking them off a sinch....I can now switch from retriever to spinnin reel in seconds. I like the reel for fast paced gar action, but the retriever is nearly essential on the bigheads. This bow is the PERFECT bowfishin bow...and if I ever come across a blown up Cuda, I may swap cams for some cuda cams and have the ultimate bowfishin rig. 55# limbs. Anyway, here goes.... Who else is anxious to hit the water?
Hard to tell..Bow was free seeing as it was my youth hunting bow before hand...retriever was had for $60, $15 in ss bolts, $7 for fingerguards, free sights, $8 in paint....The real cost in bowfishing is in your arrows and line costs....Arrows ain't cheap, and they seem to get lost more often than I care to think about. I'm sure this bow could be had used for one hundred something? Not sure. It was $280 new as a package. ANY bow would do for bowfishing, just get low poundage at the right DL for you. If you are going to paint it like I did, it doesn't matter what so ever what condition it is in as far as looks go. I was in a local shop about 1 hour from here last summer, and bought a used PSE bow for my buddy for $20. 50-60 lb limbs, and 2-3" DL adjustability. He spent $8 in paint, $20 in ss hardwear, and a new set of strings, and he had what appeared and functioned as a brand new bow. You should be able to get setup for <$100 if you tried hard enough. Get an old used bow, a bottle retriever, and go fishing. Arrows and 2-3 spools of string for the summer and you are golden. Last year I spent $150 in arrows though. (had a problem arise with the spinner reel catching and locking in gear, snapping the string midshot and the arrow shoots off into never never land...lost FIVE in one night before finally just throwing the bow down for good that night, idiotic on my part but I kept thinking I had fixed the problem) Arrows cost anywhere from $12 to $25 each fully rigged....you can save a little money by buying the parts individually and rigging them yourself. I bought one dozen green shafts ($2.50 each), two dozen nocks($0.25 each), AMS safety slides ($12-15 for a 5 pack), and muzzy or cajun piranha points ($6 each), a bottle of Gorilla glue for the heads, and super glue for the slide stop and nock...You need to buy in bulk somewhat to offset the shipping costs, but it can save you money and you know the arrows are rigged just the way you want them...My arrows cost exactly (2.5+.25+2.8+6=11.55) $11.55. Plus $10 shipping divided among the dozen, so about $12-13 per arrow. They are certainly stronger rigged than store bought complete arrows, and look sharper as well) String will cost you $8-10 per spool, and 2 spools SHOULD last you a summer...if you are careful with it and don't allow it to fray or cut when avoidable... My one piece of advice, for both costs and ease of use...go with a bottle retriever over a spinnin reel..the reels are faster and feel like a fight with drag and all, but the retrievers are stupid proof and bullet proof....I don't think you can mess one of these up.
AMS Wave Roller Rest. Backwater Bowfishing DID have the green shafts, but it appears they no longer carry them. They now only have white, blue, and orange. The green and orange were always, oddly enough, 50 cents cheaper than blue or white...SO I saved about $6/dozen to switch to a colorful shaft.?
Schweet set up Trevor. I'm looking forward to shooting a few gar and freshwater drum when I find some downtime this summer
