Spring campout and tilapia hunt.

[PeteC]

My wife,daughter,and son in law, and I went campin' this weekend to try  a little fish huntin'.The weather was very nice and we had a great trip.We saw a lot of wildlife,snuck up,(yea,that's a word in east Texas),on a bunch of feral hogs,for the fun of it,although we were on state property and could'nt take any.We shot 33 nice tilapia,not bad considering the water was murky,with just a tad more wind than we like.But we had an awful lot of fun,and I was wantin' to stay a few more days,but you know how that goes.I'll have some more pictures to add later ,but here is a start. God Bless.

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[PeteC]

A few more

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[PeteC]

Just a note about my wife's and daughter's bows.I built both of these in '03.My daughter's is from a southern red oak stave.It's tilllered to 28" with a 45# draw,and the bow is 68" tip to tip.I just recently re-built my wife's bow.It was a 68",45# flatbow.Last week I narrowed and reflexed the tips,reshaped the handle,cut it back to 66",then re-tillered.It had a natural deflex at the fades and was a natural candidate as a deflex-reflex.I took it down to 42#,which is the exact weight of her deer hunting bow.It's osage,and for such a light bow,it handles the fishin' arrows very well,and she shoots it very well also. God Bless

[bryan irwin]

cool looks like fun i have a fish arrow set up like that never tried it though the arrow is fiberglass and quite heavy will it hurt anything to shoot in a lam.bow

[Hillbilly]

Looks like a great trip and some fun times (and some good fillets.) We're going to try to stick a few fish this weekend. Bryan, It won't hurt a thing to shoot those fiberglass fish arrows through any bow that I know of. I shoot them through my selfbows, never had a problem.

[huntertrapper]

Very kewl stuff. nice fish and awesome job of stalkin them hogs

[chasing crow]

Wow, nice mess of fish. Looks like a really great camping trip.  I would like to try fishing like that sometime.

[PeteC]

Bryan,you can shoot a fishin' arrow out of any bow with enough umph to get it launched. God Bless

[hedgeapple]

Pete, what a great time with the family and dinner to boot.  I wish we had tilapia in KY.

I have a question or 6 about setting up a trad bow for bow fishing.

First it looks like in the picture that the plastic fletchings have been removed from the arrow.  Is that the case? 
Then there's the whole spine issue, how do you handle that with FG arrows?

Are there some woods out there that are heavier than water like maybe dogwood or iron wood, that could be used for fishing arrows?

If I really want/need fletching to compensate for my bad form, is there a way to make feathers water repellant?

Your reels don't look like the typical black plastic models I see in the stores.  Did you make these?  Also, I'd love a description and pictures on how you attached them to your bows.

Thanks a bunch. Dave

[recurve shooter]

hedgeapple, i cant speak for them, but i can tell ya about my rig. 

i have mine on my 55# pearson hunter recurve, just because its my most powerfull bow and i have trouble pokeing holes in big gar 20 yards from me lol.

anyway, the arrows that i buy come without the little plastic fletchings, and fly straight. i guess its because they are so heavy, pluss i believe that the drag of the line on the back of the arrow helps to stabalize it. as for the real, you can buy tape on moddles or addapters or whatever, but being a redneck, my version involves a flattened piece of pipe and lotsa electrical tape lol.

the reels are meant to bolt in to the stabalizer hole on a compound, so i think the easyest way to do it is to just lose that long bolt, get a shorter one, bolt the reel to something that you can tape to your riser. mine is just a flattened piece of aluminum pipe with a hole drilled through it, the reel bolted on to that, with about eight enches of pipe sticking up past the top of the reel. then i just tape that to the non-bending part of my bow, so that the top of the pipe is just below my arrow shelf, the reel is just below my bow hand, and i bent the pipe so the reel is pointed straight away from my bow, not at a downward angle. 

just my way, im sure someone els has a simpler way to do it. 

[hedgeapple]

Thanks recurve,
I didn't think about the string creating a drag to help stablize the arrow.  I have a couple of those type of reels.  And was thinking of mounting them to my stick bow.  But, I would like to be able to remove them fairly easily since presently I don't have multiple bows that I could dedicate one for fishing.  I think tape would work, but it would leave sticky gunk on the bow.  I didn't think about adjusting the angle of the reel to match better with the bow.

I was thinking of using the plastic reel by removing the long screw, bolting the reel to a piece of thin wood that would be shaped in a U shape to particial go around the limb.  The U-shaped section would be lined with leather to prevent wood on wood abrasion. Then I would use velcro sinching strap to tighten it to the limb.

Yep, I tend to over think and over engineer.  haha

[PeteC]

Dave,I buy these arrows on line,and they come that way,sans plastic fletching.As far as shooting them from our self-bows,we have no issues.Granted,I use bows that are fairly close to center,but the  arrows fly very well. I have used self -fishing arrows ,and, they work.Privet works good,and I've used cane,but make them long ,and they'll work a lot better. These arrows are so heavy that fletching will do very little to help arrow flight.You really don't need the fletching. I turn all of our reels on my lathe,and they work well with 6F flyline. I'll see if I can get a picture of the reel and mount. God Bless

[PeteC]

Dave here are some close ups of one of my reels. The mount is just strap steel bent to fit the bow,then padded  to prevent scratching the bow finish.Very easy to make. I now use plastic tubing to stretch over the mount as padding,the one in the pic is wrapped with tape. God Bless

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[recurve shooter]

hedgeapple, that should work fine. and i have a few bows but only one that i really like, , but the finish is screwed on it anyway. (dont strap your bow to your back and swim accross salt watter to a different sea wall.  so i dont care about the tape. 

[hedgeapple]

Thanks Pete for the picture and the advice.

Recurve swimming with a bow strapped to my is soooo something I would do.  haha