BowFishing

[Gordon martiniuk]

Was wondering which arrows fly the best from a 55lb Recurve ,,and which tips(Broadheads)? work the best for large suckers, Has any of you used those yellowjacket fish arrows I have seen are they any good?

any of the solid glass arrows work just fine, i like the muzzy head. i suggest getting the arrows with the slides on them for saftey.

[CavScoutArcher]

X2 on the any solid glass arrows.  I have tired the yellow jacket shafts. They work well and are a little stiffer than the regular white glass ones. But to me they were not worth the extra cost. They are more geared towards the compound shooters with high poundage bows. Stick with basic whit shafts.
 AMS saftey slides are a must on all my arrows. #1 for the saftey end of it, they prevent snap back, which could be life endangering. #2 Because you get better arrow fight with them, and #3 because they keep the line at the rear of the arrow when retriving the arrow from the bottom or even when pulling in a fish. this keeps the arrow inline more with the sting and applies the most torque to whatever it is your pulling. Important when you miss and stick an arrow into a unseen log on the bottom.

As far as broadheads go.  I personally have had the best luck with muzzy heads, the pirana heads work well too. For general ever thing fish, from 15" gar to 50lb big heads they work great!  Unless you are targeting strickly large fish, I would stay away from the larger broadheads on the market. Unlike in bowhunting, while bowfishing you do not want a large hole in the fish, a large hole will cause more pull outs that result in lost fish that swim off and die( and are always found by someone who will protest our sport) To keep pullouts to a min, I use the muzzy heads and bend the barbs down to the shaft as flat as they will go while still retaining the ability to flip them around for easier arrow removeal.  The basic muzzys come with two different tip options, the carp and the gar.  The differece is minimal on these and I use both. The carp tips work best on fish but take a beating while fishing around rocks. Luckily they are easy to resharpen with a file. The gar tips take a beating a little better but are harder to sharpen and they tear a bigger wound channel though the fish. Lately I have gotten away from the gar tips unless I'm fishing alot of rocks and have only been using the carp tips with good succuss.

[KentuckyTJ]

Yep no need for the Yellow jackets for a trad bow. Good advice to go with the safety slides. Carp are soft fleshed/skinned so really need one of the grapple type heads to keep them on after a hit, especially for the larger ones. I prefer the heads that I can untwist while the fish is on the arrow and it will release without me having to unscrew the tip with a flopping fish on your arrow. This is a huge time saver when you are in the middle of a bunch of fish and not to mention you won't have to touch the slimmy critters or get them all over your clothes.

[Gordon martiniuk]

Thank you Fellows for the tips and yes I have some saftey slides ,,  my only problem was that my white fiberglass arrow does not fly well from my 55 lb stealth

[eman614]

i'm gonna throw my 2 cents in. if you are using an 808 style reel do not!!! use the ams safety slide system, as it will allow you to draw the bow without pressing the button. which could end terribly. i learned this the hard way. luckly noone was hurt.

[HB3]

If you use a short rod with the reel and a slide you can't shoot it with out pushing the button, great saftey feature, it will pull your arrow off the nock before you shoot. Now have these on my bows as well as the kids bows. Like the Muzzy reel, lots faster and will also land a big fish. Lots of the guys around here use them on big gator gar.

[ozy clint]

you can checkout my big shark setup in the latest TBM.

i use  the solid glass arrows out of my 69# recurve with 500gr garpoon points. i had to use a fat 16 strand dacron string with silencers to get them stiff enough.