What a week! 3k+ miles alabama tennesee and kentucky bowfishing

[Delawareriver]

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.

[Delawareriver]

Friday, tournament day!! Got back to the hotel around 730 and caught a few hours of sleep. Headed to the tournament site which was just crazy. Saw everything from a canoe with lights to 80k airboats with fan boats, kicker boats, Trollers, mud motors from top of the line all the way down to redneck engineering 101 haha. Met up with some friends from other states kentucky, louisiana, illinois, Michigan etc that I havnt seen in a few years and talked to bunch of guys I've only talked online with. Just an amazing sight to see with a 1000 participants and roughly 350 bowfishing rigs ready to go! They gave out about a dozen guided trips for all over the country and probably 100 prizes. I missed a few by 1 number bUT we didn't get lucky. They wrapped it all up and we hit the road around 5. Our game plan was to hit a nice looking mid lake spot with back coves and sloughs with a few long islands on the main lake of guntersville. The boat launch was crazy with 20+ other bowfishing rigs trying to launch and another 40 bass boat trailed taking up a small parking lot. Trucks and trailers parked a half mile down the road on the side of the road. We headed to slough and parked the boat waiting for the 7pm start. Once we got the official go ahead we started working the grassy slough and we're into fish right away. I added a dozen gar, cats and bowfin into the barrel within the first 20 mins bUT not a common to be seen anywhere. Worked our way though shooting a bunch of rough fish till we hit abother large cove that we saw at least 3 other boats working. Hit it awhile till we decided to head across the main lake. Once we got out to the main lake it looked like a mini city with boats lighting up shores both up and down the lake for miles. We got into another slough and managed a few carp till we saw a fatty swim out in deeper water, one of my team mates stuck him with a great shot, will turned out wasn't a car bit fat 25lb blue cat. Worked our way through shooting small carp, drum, buffalo, bowfin and gar. Same story rest of the night till we rolled up on a nice carp on the main lake shoreline. We doubles up on a nice 25lber. Boats were going everywhere, hitting every shore line so we headed back to the launch, got a few snacks and hit the a back cove. Nothing to show and we followed the weighs at 10 pm and 1am on facebook. We realized my 25lber wouldn't win a weigh in bit a good chance I could place in top 5 and at least cash a check so we wasted as obviously every shore line was beat to death bit we managed a cpipe hundred small fish for the night. We packed it up and headed to the 4am weigh in. We got there and I took my carp up and saw a few nice fish were weighed in already, I jumped in and took over the 5th spot which was the last paying spot but sure enough the next guy to walk up was holding a monster I knew I was out even before he weighed in, 34.95lbs. I watched the rest of the weigh in and no one else turned in any bigger so was one spot away from cashing a check. No time left to dump the boat back in so we headed to the hotel and called it a night.

Saturday needed a new game plan to get away from the other boats. Decided to head back up to nickajack lake. We beat the main lake shorelines and got on some nice carp with a bunch over 20lbs all night long. The Canadian team mate shot a nice 26.55 lber, and we missed one or two bigger fish pushing if not over 30lbs. Awesome night shooting big drum, few nice gar, lots of commons, and cats (mostly channel cats, few 5lb blues and 1 5lb flathead) all night and only saw one other boat. Being a hour and half away from weigh ins and on better fish we didn't wanna leave and decided to try the 4am weigh in again. We pushed the time and loaded the boat up at the last minute. Gps had us getting there with 10 mind to spare. So we watched weigh in updates the whole way there and knew we were in the money. Sure enough got there with about 8 mins left and my teammate took over the lead for the 4am weigh in. THan the last 5 mins a group of boats pulled up and guys ran up holding very nice fish. Team mate got bumbed right down the line as the weighed in right out of the money. Oh well we headed back to the hotel caught a few hours of sleep. Checked the 7am weigh in and just our luck if we would have weighed in then we would if taken 2nd. Oh well we loaded up around noon and made the long trip home. Took forever but got home around 3am Monday morning called a personal day into work and slept till 1pm haha. Sorry for the long read but figured some guys would want some details and I could of added more. For all the other guys I'll add pictures in the morning

[bunker dunker]

congrats,sounds like a great trip!!!glad you and your buds had a good time and are home safe.

[Rickhem]

Good read, thanks for posting.
Sounds like you all had a great time and had a lot of fun.
Sometimes the story of finishing just out of the money is worth as much as anything.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Great write up and report Dude! Definitely sounds like you guys had a blast! Good times had by all!

[henro]

Sounds like an amazing trip! I would love to do something like that...

[Delawareriver]

Thanks guys, I'll get some pictures up shortly.

Just wait till next year we are planning the ultimate trip. Kentucky, alabama, louisiana, alabama gulf shore, flordia, south carolina, maryland

[River Renegade]

Great report & read sounded like a blast.

[AndyS]

Cool !! Now come load up on the Raritan river !!

[Delawareriver]

Originally Posted by AndyS

Cool !! Now come load up on the Raritan river !!

You got a ramp that I can be parked at over night and don't need a several hundred dollar permit?