Delawareriver
04-08-2016, 04:23 AM
Made plans last fall to head down to a national bowfishing tournament held out of guntersville Alabama. Was an awesome tournament with $150k worth in prizes and cash for winners with lots of different ways to win. Pretty cool format with 4 different weigh in hours on both Friday and Saturday nights and the overall tournament winner with the largest common carp receiving a custom 750hp airboat from monster airboats valued over at $85k. With two of my team mates being from very tip top of upstate new York and the 3rd guys from ottawa Canada the jumped on the drive Monday morning 3/28 at 10am putting them at my place around 4pm well as luck would happen 2 hours from my place a bearing went bad on the trailer and actually screwed up the spindle. As luck would have it they found a local weld shop. The guy didn't have the right parts and neither did the local tractor supply yet they managed to get welded and laithed to where it would work again and the nice guy didnt even want to charget them yet they managed to pay him for his time. Minor headache but they got down to my place at 730pm. We jump right on the road and took turns driving through out the night. Till the morning when we stopped at Walmart in Tennessee to pick up fishing licenses for tennesee which always turned out to be an adventure as anybody that has tried to buy a license at Walmart knows usually they don't have the sharpest tack behind the counter and then throw a Canadian in the mix with no social security number in the mix. After a few phone calls and getting the licenses straightened out back on the road. Stopped at a local bowfishing retailer down there that was the actual host of the tournament picked up a few supplies and finally got to the hotel around 11am. Caught a power nap for two or three hours and back on the road north to nickajack lake.
Night 1 hit the water about a hour before dark and cruised around checking out a few spots that we scouted using Google maps, bing, navonics etc. Once we lost our sunlight we tied up and waited for dark to start the generator and lights. We started on a main lake shore line just because we were there and we're working towards a large shallow flat. Water was heavily stained but right off the bat we got into small channel cats and small spotted gar. Finally got into our target species with a few smaller Carp coming out of the downed timber. Managed one 21lb common plus a dozen small carp and another dozen small cats and gar. Decided to hit the big flats and we're disappointed as we saw next to nothing other than a few nice bass and panfish. Ran back towards the boat launch and fished around a bunch of islands where a large grass carp managed to jet through the lights before anyone of us had a chance to draw our bows. Finally found consistent carp around the timber but nothing over 8 or 9lbs. Will temps dropping into the 40s and a stiff breeze we called it an early night going on 44 hours awake with only 3 or so hours of sleep. Boy did it feel good to lay down in bed even tho only managed a few more hours
Leads us to Wednesday the 30th. Got our alabama licenses, lunch and headed to wheeler lake alabama. Beautiful weather forecasted in the 60s all night but breezy, decided to stay out of the main lake with the stiff breeze and ram back a back creek. Right away we were pushing fish that we couldn't see in the muddy water. After chasing mud swirls for awhile we ended up in a small cove and the fish losing room to run. Finally started picking a few smaller ones off as they hit the surface, buffalo suckers! One if my favorite fish to shoot for sure. We winded several miles down the creek shooting more small buffs, small spotted gar, and channel cats. Few times we even beached the boat in shallow cuts and got out and chased the buffs with head lamps. Several more miles up the creek where we ended up in a large shallow cove that we saw our one and only common carp for the night. On the way back we followed the deeper channel and the buffs were coming to the surface and zig zagging sometimes hitting the boat or beaching themselves all while making fun and challenging shooting. Managed a 24lb buffalo and roughly 60-70 2-5lb buffs with a hand full of cats and gar. Had a blast but another night of scouting with no help for the tournament. Called it quits around 4am and back to the hotel.
Woke up mid day to a very heavy rain and thunderstorms. Grabbed some lunch and watch the blue sky's appear. Was a nice surprise as it would be our last night to scout before the tournament (couldn't shoot it have our bows tho as it was within 24 hours of the start of the tournament.) While at lunch I noticed a good bowfishing report at the kentucky and barkeley dams in Kentucky roughly 4 hours north of us. I joked about going as the report mentioned shooting a paddlefish (also known as spoonbill to most locals) which was on all of our bucketlists. Well as we finished lunched we all received severe thunderstorms/flash flood/tornado/hail/wind warnings. So we talked about it and knew it wouldn't be smart to scout that night so we flipped a coin. Heads we go shoot the dams tails we get drunk at the hotel. Well fate would have it, he headed back to the hotel packed up and hit the road north kentucky bound. Another Walmart adventure with the local folk not knowing how to get a Canadian a fishing license. Little set back but we got to barkeley dam around 9pm. Dropped the boat in, idled up to the dam using a spot light looking for big head carp which are very spooky. Managed to see a few silver carp swim by but I was stuck holding the light and everyone else missed. A few more drifts with just glimpses of silver carp and no bigheads in sight, so we fired up the generator to have some fun. Within 20 yards of running with lights on we watched a silver jump behind us right into the back of the boat. Didn't take long and we were into the jumping silvers pretty good, I nailed one out of the air and the other guys managed a few. After a few circles and barge coming through and watching probably close to 100 silver go crazy jumping at the same time we headed down river. The water was up causing a lot of flooded timber. Didn't take long and we were into big spotted gar, occasional silver, 3 grass carp, few small buffs and freshwater drum. Around midnight we pulled the boat out and shot from the rocks near the dam looking for our spoonbill with no luck. Headed 10 mins down the road to kentucky dam. Not much to say here only saw a few silver carp, some small gar, missed a nice 40-50lb buff, and found 1 bighead carp up shallow that should have taken off a long time before we got to him with the lights and generator but the Canadian managed to put an arrow through him. Pulled out at 330 and headed back to Alabama.
Night 1 hit the water about a hour before dark and cruised around checking out a few spots that we scouted using Google maps, bing, navonics etc. Once we lost our sunlight we tied up and waited for dark to start the generator and lights. We started on a main lake shore line just because we were there and we're working towards a large shallow flat. Water was heavily stained but right off the bat we got into small channel cats and small spotted gar. Finally got into our target species with a few smaller Carp coming out of the downed timber. Managed one 21lb common plus a dozen small carp and another dozen small cats and gar. Decided to hit the big flats and we're disappointed as we saw next to nothing other than a few nice bass and panfish. Ran back towards the boat launch and fished around a bunch of islands where a large grass carp managed to jet through the lights before anyone of us had a chance to draw our bows. Finally found consistent carp around the timber but nothing over 8 or 9lbs. Will temps dropping into the 40s and a stiff breeze we called it an early night going on 44 hours awake with only 3 or so hours of sleep. Boy did it feel good to lay down in bed even tho only managed a few more hours
Leads us to Wednesday the 30th. Got our alabama licenses, lunch and headed to wheeler lake alabama. Beautiful weather forecasted in the 60s all night but breezy, decided to stay out of the main lake with the stiff breeze and ram back a back creek. Right away we were pushing fish that we couldn't see in the muddy water. After chasing mud swirls for awhile we ended up in a small cove and the fish losing room to run. Finally started picking a few smaller ones off as they hit the surface, buffalo suckers! One if my favorite fish to shoot for sure. We winded several miles down the creek shooting more small buffs, small spotted gar, and channel cats. Few times we even beached the boat in shallow cuts and got out and chased the buffs with head lamps. Several more miles up the creek where we ended up in a large shallow cove that we saw our one and only common carp for the night. On the way back we followed the deeper channel and the buffs were coming to the surface and zig zagging sometimes hitting the boat or beaching themselves all while making fun and challenging shooting. Managed a 24lb buffalo and roughly 60-70 2-5lb buffs with a hand full of cats and gar. Had a blast but another night of scouting with no help for the tournament. Called it quits around 4am and back to the hotel.
Woke up mid day to a very heavy rain and thunderstorms. Grabbed some lunch and watch the blue sky's appear. Was a nice surprise as it would be our last night to scout before the tournament (couldn't shoot it have our bows tho as it was within 24 hours of the start of the tournament.) While at lunch I noticed a good bowfishing report at the kentucky and barkeley dams in Kentucky roughly 4 hours north of us. I joked about going as the report mentioned shooting a paddlefish (also known as spoonbill to most locals) which was on all of our bucketlists. Well as we finished lunched we all received severe thunderstorms/flash flood/tornado/hail/wind warnings. So we talked about it and knew it wouldn't be smart to scout that night so we flipped a coin. Heads we go shoot the dams tails we get drunk at the hotel. Well fate would have it, he headed back to the hotel packed up and hit the road north kentucky bound. Another Walmart adventure with the local folk not knowing how to get a Canadian a fishing license. Little set back but we got to barkeley dam around 9pm. Dropped the boat in, idled up to the dam using a spot light looking for big head carp which are very spooky. Managed to see a few silver carp swim by but I was stuck holding the light and everyone else missed. A few more drifts with just glimpses of silver carp and no bigheads in sight, so we fired up the generator to have some fun. Within 20 yards of running with lights on we watched a silver jump behind us right into the back of the boat. Didn't take long and we were into the jumping silvers pretty good, I nailed one out of the air and the other guys managed a few. After a few circles and barge coming through and watching probably close to 100 silver go crazy jumping at the same time we headed down river. The water was up causing a lot of flooded timber. Didn't take long and we were into big spotted gar, occasional silver, 3 grass carp, few small buffs and freshwater drum. Around midnight we pulled the boat out and shot from the rocks near the dam looking for our spoonbill with no luck. Headed 10 mins down the road to kentucky dam. Not much to say here only saw a few silver carp, some small gar, missed a nice 40-50lb buff, and found 1 bighead carp up shallow that should have taken off a long time before we got to him with the lights and generator but the Canadian managed to put an arrow through him. Pulled out at 330 and headed back to Alabama.