A couple days ago I drove to Cabela’s to buy another Muzzy Tournament reel, which I installed relatively quickly, tied-on a new arrow, and was ready for my next bowfishing outing.
It was around 80F when I arrived at the river around 12:45pm today. The water was a bit turbid, but not too bad.
The carp were out, but not in the numbers I’d seen last week.
Let’s cut to the chase. Today was, in a word, humbling.
It’s fun to have a super productive day on the water, but not all days are fruitful. Today was a proverbial kick in the balls.
On a more interesting note, today was the first time I shot a carp where it didn’t fight at all during retrieval. It just came in like a log.
The reason: my arrow had gone directly into the top of the fish’s head. Here’s a picture of the carp showing the arrow placement.
I can’t take credit for this accuracy because I wasn’t aiming for its head.
What happened is I saw a tight group of three carp and took the shot, not aiming at any one of them in particular.
For good measure, after the fish was landed, I used a large rock and made sure the job was done. I didn’t want the fish to suffer, having learned earlier this week just how tough carp can be.
But, the day went downhill quickly from there.
I had landed the above carp on my 4th or 5th shot of the day.
Jumping ahead a bit, I ended up being 1-for-23 on the day. That’s embarrassing. That’s bush league. I’m not even sure why I was counting my shots–I guess I’m just a numbers guy.
There weren’t any high probability shots today, but there were plenty of medium and lower probability shots, and I connected on one out of 23 of them.
That’s weak.
Sure, I took some shots out of desperation near the end of the day. I told myself it’s partially a numbers game—more shots means more fish. “You’ll never connect on shots you don’t take,” etc.
But today was different. The fish were deeper, and they were faster. Smaller on average too. They seemed ridiculously spooky.
It’s worth mentioning that while I was casting my fly rod later in the day, I saw a huge carp swimming towards me. It was still about 40-feet out, but honestly it looked like a big redfish in Louisiana.
The beast started turning once it was about 30-feet from me. I took the shot, which was a hail Mary, because I had to. I didn’t miss by much, but I missed.
Around 4:45pm, I started for home. But as I approached the bottom of the reservoir, I slowed down.
There were quite a few carp mulling around.
So, I put my vehicle in park, shut it off, and grabbed my bow. This was my opportunity to salvage my day of bowfishing.
Three shots later, I was 0-for-3. These were decent opportunities, not overly difficult shots.
And so, that’s how the bowfishing went today.
Continuing my bowfishing patrol of the shoreline, I spotted three carp in a somewhat tight formation, and not too far offshore.
After approaching slowly and quietly, I took a shot.
But, my arrow stopped in mid-flight about ten feet away, and my Muzzy reel handle went flying into the shallow water several feet in front of me.
What on earth just happened?
It turns out, the reel handle assembly was literally sheared off. I couldn’t fix it in the field, and so I was done bowfishing at just 2pm.
Disappointing!
I wasn’t able to find replacement parts online, so I had to buy a new Muzzy Tournament reel. I also did my best to repair the damaged reel to keep as a backup.
I really wish I knew what happened. If I had to guess, I’d say the line somehow got tangled up with the reel handle. But why did 10-feet of line shoot out first?
It’s worth mentioning three eye-opening things I learned while reading an excellent bowfishing book called Practical Bowfishing by William Hovey Smith. I highly recommend you buy this book.
- Carp are soft-skinned and notorious for pulling arrows out. (This answers my question of why so many carp were throwing my arrows.)
- If you shoot a fish that’s around 35lbs, it’s best to pull the fish in by hand, rather than risk damaging the reel by putting too much of a load on it.
- If you see 20 fish while bowfishing during the daytime, you’ll likely see 200 at night. Carp are much more active at night.
After reading #3, I’m really looking forward to trying bowfishing at night, which I’ve never done.
