I have never used wood, always fiberglass. The extra weight and strength of a solid fiberglass arrow gives you the ability to hit a fish slightly underwater and the arrow won't break when bringing the fish back in to the boat. My experience is limited to shooting only carp, but even a 15-20# carp can be pretty hard on your arrow. I think a reasonable sized carp could snap a wood arrow, but it was done years ago, before we had the fiberglass arrows. Maybe they let them swim more, or didn't have a line attached to the arrow....and probably lost some arrows?. I can only imagine what some of the gar or saltwater fish could do when arrowed.