Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting What recurve for bowfishing?

I don't want to use my brackenbury of course...

Looking for a 45-55 or so pound recurve, stout, for bowfishing, economical cost would be a plus. Most of the stuff I've seen in pawn shops have twisted limbs... man I wish I never sold my old Hoyt take down to my buddy.... but it was a hair heavy at 60 or 65....

Suggestions welcome.

My old man used to like to wade streams and shoot suckers. He used a 57# recurve.
I've never done it but think my 48" 70's Supermag would work well for that. It's 4528". Easier to keep out of the water maybe. And more manuverable in a boat perhaps.

Rost ,

I'm going to give one of these [sorry can't get it to plug] [PSE Coyote recuve] a whirl ,they sell for about $230 and i figure i can scratch two itches with it traditional and bowfishing.
Can't decide on the poundage wondering whether to go 45 or 50lbs ,expierenced shooters say 40lbs is plenty so i might go 45lbs and still do fine on small florida deer.

I use a 60# PSE Coyote with an ABS reel and love it. The Coyote's are tough and the adjustable arrow rest is a plus. That draw weight isn't needed, it just matches my hunting longbow so it's just another way to stay in shape.

Ed

Thats what I was thinking, just didn't recall the name of the PSE bow.....

I'll look into it deeper.

ABS reel... that the retriever thing with the line spools in a bottle basically? Any bad or good ones of them?

Arrows and or tips IE I'm thinking Muzzy heads.

BTW my Brack recurve is right at 60 so the weight is fine.

Jeff

I've done it a bunch with my original Brack. Dropped it in the lake once and had go in after it. Talk about a tight butt till I got it out

I'm using a Archery Traditions Longhunter with a tape on reel these days.

Jeff,

There's only one that spools the line into a bottle that I know of, the ABS bowfishing reel.

There are two models, one that the line is tied off to the reel, and one that the line can be attached to a float if you are shooting really big fish or gators.
I have both models and see no real difference in performance.

IMHO, Muzzy heads are the only way to go. I have used Muzzy, Cajun and some off-brand I don't remember and keep going back to Muzzys.

I haven't bowfished here in TX since I moved here. I used to bowfish for pike in Alaska and loved it.

Ed

If you are ever in my neck of the woods, I have an airboat and it now has a cheap rail on the front with 4 lights.... when I put a grass rake up front I'll redesign maybe a better setup...

I haven't done a local lake yet... just the Colorado River.

Jeff

It's an " AMS " reel that pushes the line into the bottle not "ABS". But anyways, they are great reels for the money and very user friendly. Plus they have EXCELLENT customer service and all the AMS products are high quality.

Ill start by saying: I always use the "no-glove" rubber finger tab things that mount on the bow string. They are awesome! Well worth the $$$.

I've had a few different set-ups in the past few years. I started with an AMS reel and Muzzy Wheel of fortune on a Bear Archery Whitetail Master Compound bow this was a very good set-up, dependable and easy to use. It was set at about 55 lbs., worked great, and only had a few blow-throughs at very close shooting distances.

I made the mistake of shooting with a friend that has a reel and real seat set-up and found out that they can shoot MUCH faster because of the gear ratio in the reel. The AMS is 1:1, most bow fishing reels are 4:1, this makes a HUGE difference on how fast you can get your arrow back into the boat and shoot again.

So the next set-up was a Bowtech Independence (usually a "fingers" compound bow), it was a 60 lb. max, and I turned it down to 50 lb. I put a Muzzy reel seat, muzzy Wheel of fortune, and a Muzzy bowfishing reel on this one. IMO it was the perfect compound bowfishing set-up. It shot great, easy to draw, fast retrieve, plenty of power. But then I got the wild hair that I wanted a recurve instead. DOH!!!! So like an idiot I sold this bow to a friend (which means I can still use it sometimes... I hope), and went in search of a recurve.

First stop was a Hoyt Pro Hunter, got it off a guy here on the fire, it showed up and was in WAY better condition (like it just came off a store shelf!) than he described and his pictures did not do it justice... it's a wall hanger now and will be used to deer hunt eventually.

Next attempt was a Fred Bear Grizzly, got if from a guy off of an Iowa based site... same deal better than descirbed, too nice to drag out in the muck.

Then there was a Traditional Archery show/expo not to far away, i was on a mission to find a bow at this point. I ended up with another Fred Bear Grizzly, this one is 2 years older than my "nice" one, and had been refinished, and the price was right!... PERFECT! So I picked up a Cajun reel seat (a little more compact and lighter than the muzzy), and another Muzzy bowfishing reel. This bow is almost the perfect recurve for bowfishing; it's light, plenty of power, and feels good in the hand. to help keep in in good shape I put a large piece of sticky back velcro (the loop side) covering the entire shelf and up the riser a bout 2 inches. It will be shot off the shelf, for lack of a better option. Only thing I worry about is breaking a limb, since it's a one piece bow that would be the end of it, but she still has lots of life left in her for now.

IMO the perfect recurve would be a Hoyt Game Master or GM II, since they can take a rest (wouldn't have to shoot off the shelf if you didn't want to), and you could replace the limbs if you broke one (they are a take down bow). And it's a Hoyt, so there would be no complaints there! I am still on the look out for one of these at a good price, hope to find one soon.

But I wouldn't shy away from a cheap recurve with twisted limbs either, it would work just fine for a fishin' bow, they tend to be abused anyway. And if you can get them cheap enough, they are often less expensive to replace than a set of limbs for decent a take down bow.

Shooting a recurve off a rest makes for weird aiming.... shooting off the shelf makes much more sense.

The kids around here have formed a trough of epoxy to shoot off the shelf. Of course no vanes or anythign so no biggy.

I hear ya on used ones, but I have no real source of used and don't like ebay non personally seen stuff. Twisted limbs can come undone, and unstrung, have seen that on some 4H bows that were mistreated when I was coaching a 4H archery program a bit. So I'm gun shy of twisted limbs.

Saw the Coyote as a nice bow, then noticed the kingfisher... mayb go the kingfisher route.

I have a bit of play time with the AMS reels and they are slower. Years ago when we used Zeb 808s or 888s they would catch now and then at the shot and snag the line... NOT fun... I hope Muzzy has that taken care of.

Right now I'm driving only, so I get to watch the nephews shoot, maybe I'll learn some from them but I don't YET trust them to drive my airboat while I shoot...

But I'm searching for the right gear for when I get another airboat driver to fish with us, we can swap shooting and driving...

Regards, Jeff

Used to do a ton of bowfishing, back in my younger days. Any old recurve, in the 50 +/- range will work. Those retreever reels that hold the line in a bottle, are the way to go. When suckers would come up the creeks/ditches, in the spring, we'd shoot em by the 5 gal. bucketfuls. Take them home, clean em, and score em, then have a big ole fish fry. You could literaly shoot them until your arm fell off. That's one reason I don't like too heavya bow.


maddog

Jeff,

Check the bowfishing forums at this site here -----> http://www.iowasportsman.com/forum/index.php?forum=29 (this link takes you to the bowfishing forums) Lots of good info, and much discussion about good bowfishing bows, I know quite a few of the guys on there... they really know their stuff when it comes to good and bad bows (PSE does NOT get good reviews by them for catastrophic failure reasons!). Might be a good place to ask questions too, some of them shoot year round (in Iowa), going to warm water discharges in open rivers in the winter, needless to say they are more "into it" than me!

Tyson

Cool, will check it out.

In the day, when I was young and working at a sporting goods store here in rural Texas... PSE was IT.... In fact other than my recurves I don't own a non PSE bow, but the newest one is from 1991..... Times change.

THanks, Jeff

I don't shoot a recurve for bowfishing, but I have a very good suggestion. Buy the one you can ding, bang, scratch, and otherwise abuse.

I don't know of another type of hunting that is more abusive to equipment. The water, slime, muck, blood, the running around the boat untangling lines, and fish flopping around thrashing against the boat and the bow or anything else unfortunate enough to be on the floor. Not much will age any sort of equipment faster then the high speed confusion of having a big fish on the line and another from somebody else in the boat. All the slime and blood flung into the air, equipment sliding and banging. Add night hunting to this and the abuse is easily ten fold to the whole arrangement! Dark everywhere except in front of the hot line melting lights, generator running, boat drifting into the trees along the shore and your fish rips the line out going under the boat. Your attention is always on the fish, the bow just becomes a piece of wood you lay down and forget about while you try to wrestle that fish out of the tangles!

After it's in the boat and you take a breath you realize your bow is laying there in a pool of slime and goo........ you barely wipe it off enough to use it and you start again. .......... A season of this with that same bow will age it beyond several lifetimes of big game hunting!

Yep, well aware of that. of course to an extent all my hunting stuff is tools. I don't buy or do pretty and I'm pretty rough on my stuff regardless.

I just don't like a compound for the instant shots bowfishing gives me. And without sights, I'd just as soon shoot a recurve. Of course I much enjoy hunting with one when I have time too.

It's why I bow fish with an Oneida Ospery, the best of both worlds!

You like being able to hold it on full draw or what?

I use a mamba recurve, with a reel similar to this one:



Had a friend use this bow, and he thought it was great especially for the price:

http://www.3riversarchery.com/product.asp?i=2490X

Nice bow, done with those types of reels... gotta be able to reel really fast on the rivers in the airboat or you miss a chance.... like I was reeling one year and we went right over about a 60 pound yellow cat......

Luckily, I do most of my air assault gigging while walking the shorelines. Plenty of reel time.

Don't know if I'd take my Mamba on a boat. Being a lefty, it took me some doing to get it. Hate to hurt or lose it.