Show Notes
In this week’s [UNCENSORED] podcast by GoWild, Jacob, Brayden, and Arica tell Chris all about their most recent bow fishing trip with Cajun Bowfishing. They had a LOT to learn about bowfishing because it turns out normal bow shooting doesn’t translate over very well. The trip was an absolute blast, after learning the ropes and a few hundred shots they started to see a little success. Of course, naturally it turned into a friendly competition … listen in to see who has bragging rights now that they’re back home.
The crew had a heart-pounding trip bowfishing these fish and while the fun factor is there they also touch on the other reason why this is such a good trip. What is the reason? Because of how invasive the carp have become here in the US. Carp have become a huge problem in many states, especially bad at Kentucky Lake. They cover exactly what wildlife management would like for you to do if you catch or shoot one.
They also did a little big-head carp fishing at night. The only downside to that?! Bugs! Arica was convinced that every bug in existence was around their boat!
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[UNCENSORED] by GoWild kicks off your week with shameful nonsense, inappropriate convictions, and unfiltered tales from the woods, waters and whatevers. [UNCENSORED] is a behind the scenes look at our adventures, failures, wins, embarrassing moments at trade shows, hilarious tales from the warehouse, and a good rant or three about the most recent tyranny from the Dark Lord of the Sith himself.
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Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome, Chris. Thank you. Glad to have you. It's a trial by fire, so ask your question. How does Beau fishing work? We don't know. We're simple question. Yeah. So we have been partnered with Bear Archery for a while now, and we've talked about doing this trip with them for some time. When Alec was there on the marketing team, we talked about getting together and doing it.
We met a guy at Tack that was like, you gotta come out and bow fish with us. Yeah. He was showing us videos on his phone and we were like, oh my gosh. Yeah. And so it's obviously grown in popularity. The last, I don't know, few years that I've seen for sure. And we started through, go Wild, started selling a bunch of bow fishing products.
And so I reached back out to him, was like, Hey, we're seeing a lot of traction with this. We should do something together. And so Caleb, the new marketing dude, I was like, yeah, we gotta get you guys up. Threw out a couple dates, put it on the [00:01:00] calendar. And they are located up in Southern Indiana, so it's not too far for us.
Hey, sunny side baby up there. And so we put this trip together, hit up a few of the team members that. Knew how to shoot a bow, cuz I thought that would be important. But come to find out, I think anybody could get into this. See, Lauren was like, why didn't you go? And I was like, I don't have a bow.
I've never once shot a bow. Yeah, you could have done it. Yeah. I wish I would've translated. It's an instinctual shot. You just pull the bow up and draw back and let it fly, Okay. Aiming the direction you want it to go. Yeah. If any of us had a trad bow that we shot, like on a regular basis, it would be very, Like totally a fished water.
No big deal. Yeah. But we all shoot compound bows and it's Erica actually did some of this where you actually like pull back and hold. But for the most part it's totally snap shooting. Yeah. Like with a traveler. Yeah. I wanna talk about the difference between my bow and yours boat later, but Oh, okay.
Do it. Let's get into I guess we [00:02:00] should get into how we do it for Chris Fish Blast. So my biggest question, what this was like, so Brayden, spoiler alert, Brayden already explained this to me this morning, but what I didn't get, like I go to a lake, I see a fish jump out of the water at once every five minutes.
What makes, how do you aim at those fish if they're jumping out so rarely? Or are you making them jump out? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So normal, if you're out bass fishing or something, you might see a bass or something break the surface of the water every once in a while. Yeah. It's not a common occurrence, but these silver carp that which are an invasive species They will respond to vibrations in the water and they try to get away from 'em and they will breach the water.
Okay. And so you can actually go out on YouTube and see videos of people in Southern Rivers just running a, like a John boat up the river. And these fish are over the bow of the boat, like hitting people. There were, I would say, out of the fish we saw. Maybe 10, 12 got high enough that they would've smacked one of us.
It wasn't. A ton or [00:03:00] were that high. And I don't know if that has to do with the water temperature and where they are or what, but so you're running the outboard around in the lake and those vibrations of the motor. We'll actually trigger them to jump out. Okay. And so yeah, you'd randomly see 'em, but for the most part, as we were motoring through is when they would top off where you are is where they're jumping.
Yeah. And I was explaining too, like we were looking for a frequency like of to idle at what. At what level are they jumping the most? And so it was like maybe a little faster, maybe a little slower, whatever. But you're, we never really had a hard time getting 'em to jump, but there were times where they were jumping more than others and I think they would stay, they'd be like, oh, that's it.
Stay right there. Stay at that speed. Yeah. So yeah, that was the deal. That's what got 'em to jump. And some of 'em definitely, some of 'em were shoulder height. On me, like they jump and I just see a fish, like almost eye level, just jump back in and they, some of 'em really get up, but for the most part, What made it really hard is they don't jump super high.
And so you have milliseconds, like you're back there just waiting. And you're like, when I see [00:04:00] what I'm gonna shoot. And then at the beginning, most of us definitely let a few pass where we were just like, oh my gosh, where'd that come from? How'd that happen? Okay, get ready for the next one.
It just, and then you've got four or five that y'all jump at once and you're like, I'm gonna shoot that one. By the time you pick, they're all in the water. It was like, Lot of like nervous energy. I was up there just like my, when we first got on the boat, they, they set us up with bows.
They get, get you to one, one of the set up and explain how they work. Cuz they are a little different. You have to knock the arrow a certain way cuz there's a, the, I don't remember what he called that thing that holds the line, but it's on the arrow. Oh, like a slider thing? Yeah. And so you have to make sure that's in front of the rest.
And, there's some details. You have to push the button. Like a fishing reel. Like fishing. Okay. Yeah. To make sure that the line feeds out and there's like a special reel that attaches to your bow. Yep. Okay. Yeah. And the two different types of reels that we were using was what they call a spinner, which is basically like a zco type, like you give your kids or like what most people start fishing with. [00:05:00] And then we had. Bottle reels. Okay. So I, it almost looks like a like a fly reel in some regard. Like the way, it's just a little round, narrow reel, and then there's a literally a plastic bottle that the line feeds into.
Like it doesn't wrap around a Yeah. A coil when you're it's just like going into the bottle, okay. Yeah. Which I thought was interesting. I thought we'd be tangled Glo, I didn't understand that science all, I'm just, I didn't either just balled up in there, but, and it wasn't like any, there, there was no form or fashion to it.
It was really just dumped into a bottle. Yeah. So how do you reel back in if the line is all just in the bottle? Is there still There was a reel. So this was Cajun bow fishing. Which is, Owned by Bear, right? Yep. It's like the bow, and then there's a reel on it with the crank. And then there's like a bottle behind it.
Okay. So they did have some that. Were definitely like they went on the reel, like the spinner ones that they talked about. Is that right? Yeah. Guys had, and we didn't use [00:06:00] those kind cuz I, they're more complicated apparently in how you push the button. When you push the button. Okay. So they gave us the bottles.
They gave you the dummy once? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure. But when you reeled it just like somehow went into it just pulling into bottle the bottle. And then you would basically, so when you were ready you would put the bow on. Or put the arrow on. Yeah, there was a line that was hooked to the tip of your arrow that went into the reel.
And into the bottle. And then you clicked the reel like you would do for your fishing, and then you pulled back and let go like you were. Whatever. Like you were bow hunting. Yeah. And the arrow would take off. Ow. That was your shoulder. My shoulder. I better holding that in the window or something.
You pull back and then let go and the string would go with the arrow. Okay. Yeah, and then you would either hit a fish or not. Mostly you didn't hit, not hit the fish, but So did all three of you hit a fish? Yes. Yes, we did. [00:07:00] Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I tried really hard not to, it was getting late. I was telling them my fun meter.
When I first got there, it was like, At the very top, and I'm having a great time. And then Jacob shoots a fish, then Jacob shoots two fish, then Erica shoots a fish, then Erica shoots two fish. And I'm back there just okay. And my fun meter started to go down and my serious meters started to come up.
And I'm back there you're not leaving here without shooting a fish. So I'm getting serious, like not joking around anymore. And finally hit one and my fun meter went back to the top. And I had a great time for the rest of the time. But I I don't think I could have handled the ridicule if if I didn't shoot one.
And of course, like typical fashion we had. Try to turn it into a competition. Yeah. For 20 minutes. And then all of a sudden it was your idea about the, and then all of a sudden, team Cajun just starts like 1, 2, 3, 4. And they're like, all right, we're gonna stop shooting because every time you hit one you have to stop the boat.
Okay. And yeah, they're like, we're gonna let you guys just have fun. Yeah. So the other fun thing is the boat is going around the lake the entire time you're doing this. So you gotta get your sea legs and like your shooting. Oh yeah. And these fish, so You would go around the lake [00:08:00] and there would be times when you hit the perfect spot and the engine.
The motor was like going at the right cadence where they would just be jumping outta the water left and right, like something like a frenzy, and we would all be like, ah, and like we'd be shooting, but then you'd have to reel it back in and then get it all right and they'd be jumping and you'd try to get another shot off and it never failed.
Just wild. It would never fail if you had ch If we got in one of those flurries. Because there were times where it'd be like, A couple random ones would pop off. Yeah. But if we got in one of those flurries and you shot and missed, you would be rigging your arrow and one would present like a perfect broadside shot every time.
It never failed. It's literally like they knew it was crazy. It sounds like the opposite of fly fishing. Like you go out and you're like tying flies and you go so slow and you're like sitting out there calmly I'm gonna work and perfectly lay this fly out. And this is like an arcade game. It's just fish everywhere and you're just like, yeah, shooting like crazy.
So did you enjoy it like. I think you had [00:09:00] said you didn't know how much you would enjoy it. Like how do you feel about it afterwards? Yeah, it's funny. Like I thought it would be cool cuz it's a new experience and something I haven't tried yet. And I really don't like these fish. So these fish screw up, screw those fish, they screw up lakes and fishing and you can look in online at how they have messed up the fishing at Kentucky Lake and stuff.
And so I really don't like these fish, so I was excited to take some out. Yeah. But. I'd said when we got off the boat, it was like, it's been a while since I've had this much fun on a boat. That's awesome. It, my heart rate was up when we first started motoring around trying to get it going.
Braden and I are standing up there just like childish anticipation, just can't wait. It was an absolute blast. I had a ton of fun. Sounds awesome. And it wa it, Brayden talked about like that valley from not shooting any I don't feel like I ever at any point was like, I'm ready to go.
It was almost, we watched the clock and we're like, we have a three hour drive ahead of us. We probably should leave. Yeah. Yeah. I never I never wanted to leave, but I got very serious of this is no longer just, we're out here [00:10:00] messing around. I have to shoot a fish. This is, I cannot be letting opportunities go.
Yeah. And the. Cajun bow fishing guys, they have done tournaments before. Oh yeah. Like they were very good at it. So yeah, they were getting some and we hadn't yet. And then Jacob finally did, and then they'd be getting more and then, We were like, oh gosh, we suck. And that first fish that Lucas got was big.
It was the biggest one in the day. Yeah, it was huge. It was huge. You're talking fish that big. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, like feet. Yeah. And they were heavy too. Like you'd have to pull in, you couldn't really just crank it in. You could, but they're so big that they'd come in broadside and you're like lunging that through the, I think I saw you with one on a hook or something.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so they, the arrow, the way the arrow's set up, we described the r the line and all that stuff. But the broadhead itself is like a field point, like you, what you've [00:11:00] seen a shoot just practicing. But then it has, and Brayden brought up the point of frog gigging it, it looks very similar to a frog gig spikes pointed back.
Okay. So there's an arrow and then there's four spikes that point backwards. They're soft sided fish. Arrow goes through the fish and then those barbs is what brings them back to you. Okay. Hopefully sometimes they rip through. Yeah. Which we found out. Yep. And then what do you do after you've shot a fish?
Are you just, do you have a big pile of fish on ice or are you just, these are invasive species. Screw these fish, you throw 'em back in and they're dead. Like, how's that work? Yeah. You puncture the airbag and then you send that's what. The game wardens would want you to do. Yeah.
Like they say, like they don't want you just like throwing 'em off to the side or if you wanna keep 'em and eat 'em, you're allowed to do that, but they want you to sink 'em. Okay. So that they just go to the bottom and become food for other fish. Become a warning for all the other fish out there.
Yeah. We put them on a steak on the front of it. Don't you re Pretty Yeah. So they have a gaff hook. Which is usually you bring it in. There were times where the arrow would've punctured the air bladder. [00:12:00] But most of the time they'd take the gaff, puncture, the air bladder, and then you just toss 'em back in.
Okay. So you guys didn't eat any of 'em? No. Yeah. I have no desire to eat those fish. Yeah, I don't know. You could, they said they used to be like a delicacy in, was it Europe? Europe, yeah. Like then they're the ones that brought them here. Okay. Because they wanted to eat them and then they just, apparently their gestation rate is super.
Crazy and they grow super fast okay. It's just like they just take over, they're just ping out the other fish. Yeah. What is it, so they eat the food that other fish want to eat, or is it that they just take up so much space and just mess up the habitat? Or what is the ultimate they eat lower down the food chain, so they will.
I can't remember if they're filter feeders or how they eat, but their eyes are on the bottom. So yeah, I guess that would make, dude, they are hideous fish. They're just, yeah, because our eyes are so far lower. I thought the Cajun bow fishing guys were saying that they were filter feeders. Like sometimes you can see their, so that's the difference.
Big. Oh, that's the big head. The big head carbs. Yeah. Oh, because you'll see 'em. They said [00:13:00] you'll see their mouth just like there at the surface sucking in food, but yeah, so they'll eat the plankton or vegetation stuff that. Prevents the next step from surviving that the blue gill and the minnows and the smaller bait fish will eat, which then in turn affects the bass fishing.
Okay. But from a sheer numbers, the videos that I've seen in Kentucky Lake by the dam and stuff, you could walk across these fish, there's so many of 'em there, and so there might be an element of them choking out. Yeah. Just the habitat, but. Yeah, they are a problem and they are spreading fast.
They were saying that in like Kentucky Lake or a couple other ones that they've been to, that there are so many there that you could literally shut your eyes. That, you probably shouldn't do that with a bow, but yeah, you could shut your eyes and pull the trigger and you would definitely get one.
Yeah. You're not even like aiming at all fish. You're just like, it's just a big pile of Yeah. Pile of. Yeah. But that was one way that. You can bow fish. They were saying that some other [00:14:00] ways they do like the hunting of the carp, the bighead and that You guys can correct me if I get this wrong. No, but basically they go out when it's dark and they had the boat. Oh. And there was like lights all, all over the boat. So we went out and it was dark and there were lights on the perimeter and stuff, but. What you do for the big head carp, is that you go out and based on the water, like there's ripples and stuff, or you can see their lips coming out and you locate where one is and then you basically turn off the lights of your boat and it's dark and you let the water.
Drift you over to it. So you sneak up on it, which is more of like a hunting thing. Yeah. Which seems like your heart would be like, oh god, good. Yeah. Like kinda like deer hunting or Turkey hunting when you're calling something in. Or one come in. And then once you got close to where the fish was going to be, you would draw and be ready.
And there's like light pedals on the boat. And you'd click it with your foot and you'd already be drawn and the lights would come on and [00:15:00] you would just like, bam. Get it. That sounds fun. Yeah. Or sometimes it wouldn't be there anymore. Yeah. Yeah. You'd spook it off or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Those things were massive.
They were big. Yeah. The ones that we were shooting were big, but like he was saying, they were like 60 some pounds these, and do the big heads jump out of the water as well, or? Not, no, they might, but that's not how they hunt them. He was saying like, they're mostly, they're sitting there like sifting, like letting the water come through.
They're just like in a vertical position and so they you can see them, but they're not jumping outta the water. You're shooting down in and they actually said they shoot like down into the mouth. That's how, like what they're aiming for in that situation, but, all right. Next question. Now I want Erica to tell me about the bugs.
Oh, I saw a video at night and it looks like there's a rainstorm or something behind Braden and it's just bugs. It was like a fear factor episode. Where were they? May. What? There was may flies. I'm sure there were midges and stuff too, but there's a lot of mayflies. Okay. Okay. So at one point [00:16:00] it gets dark and we have the lights on and.
It just gets like worse and worse by the minute where I would say every inch around us had a bug in it, flying around s storming us. And it typically got worse when we had to stop the boat because of the lights. Someone caught. Caught a fish. And the lights would be there. And I'm not kidding you, every bug, everything with wings from here and a mile radius was just around us.
It looked like we were in a tornado. Of. Flies or make flies. What were you were saying something? Oh. Like you could hear, you said, you could hear them hitting, bumping into each other. Like they don't make sound, but you can hear them. Like they, they were just so many of 'em, like per square inch that they were just freaking bam.
And it sounded like a light kind of static. It was like, it was weird. They were everywhere. So were you mentally prepared for that to happen? No. We went into this with Basic information of show [00:17:00] up, be here. We'll go get dinner, then we'll go over to the lake. Yeah, that was really it.
There's a lot of prep that we were not given. Yeah. And, but that kind of made it fun too. It was like just a sink or swim situation. Like he was like, here's how the bow works. And there was no like I ended up learning a few principles that like helped me actually shoot fish, but like from the beginning it was literally just sink or swim.
Get out there. Figure it out, like they're gonna jump, get ready, don't shoot each other. Here's the basics of the, don't break the bow kind of situation. Basically just keep shooting. Like just shoot. Yeah, just shoot. He's you'll figure it out. Just don't stop shooting. Okay, take cuz instinctual shooting, you can't really.
There's no really way to teach someone how to instinctually shoot. You have to shoot to learn how to instinctually shoot. Were you all shooting your own bows or did they bring bows for you to use? They just had a big chest full of like they, all right, you can use this one, you can use this one, you can use this one.
And yours was different in some way? Yeah, I thought it was, I don't know. Okay. So in the beginning it was all cool. I had a junior [00:18:00] beau. But towards the end I was like, I cannot shoot this anymore. I'm also weak Okay. Than most people. But do you think, okay, so my like the cams, is that what they're called?
They were like, oh, so that you could, you had a let off. It was a let off boat. Yeah. A let off the back, like your compound boat. So do you think that because it felt. If I pulled just a little bit, that wasn't gonna be enough for me to get that much weight to really puncture the fish.
So it was almost like I had to pull it and pull it past the lead off the valley. The valley, yeah. For it to go Was your alls like that? So mine was a little bit where like he kept, Ted kept telling me, you need to pull back farther. You need to pull back farther. Because I was trying to be fast.
Like I would see him and I'd just be like, like I would just freak out and like I turned my left forearm into freaking at ground hamburger beef. Yeah. It's just sore as heck. And I asked one of 'em actually, I was like, how do I think it was Caleb. I was [00:19:00] like, how do I avoid that? I know how to avoid this with my compound, but.
He's like the same way. You idiot. Basically like you're, it's the same principles. Put your hand on the way. The problem is I'm grip, like I was so tor white knuckle. I'm just white knuckle, crippling and gripping this bow. I don't wanna drop the bow. All this stuff. But then I figured it out later. But What was I talking about?
Shoot, the different draw. Oh yeah. Draw. He was telling me that I needed to draw back farther, and that didn't make sense to me because I was like, man, they're in the air for such a short amount of time. I can't do it. And then Caleb was like, I'm, IM watching him a little bit. And he said to me, You're trying to shoot 'em outta the air too much.
He's look at where they're gonna land and shoot where they're gonna land, which then gives you a little more time when trying to shoot 'em at the apex when they're actually in the air. It gives you just a little more time for them to fall, which is more time to pull back. And so I started learning okay, see 'em start to pull back and then once they land, let it go and you are hitting them.
Most of the time, which Jacob did something cool, but I'll let him tell that [00:20:00] story. But most of the time you're hitting them like after they hit the water and you're trying to like, lead them a little bit. And that's what ends up, being the most successful, like giving you the most time to actually hit them.
But It's it was really difficult to hit him outta the air, I guess is what I'll say about that. And that's my, like from YouTube videos and stuff my interpretation of what bow fishing is you got these fish jumping and you're just, shooting 'em out of the air Fred Bear or something.
But yeah. Yeah. I guess I wish I would've tried your alls because I kept looking at you guys and you were just going phew. Phew. Yeah. And like mine was like, yeah. Oh yeah. Like that. And so I couldn't, there wasn't like, I also wasn't strong enough either to just sit there and rip it. Yeah. All the way back and get over that valley. You had to get through the valley. It was hard. Dude. I punched myself from the face a couple times because I would go, oh, just pulled my headset off. I would pull back so fast and letting, like when I was doing good, like with my good shots, I would be like that. I would finish with my other arm would rip off the back.
I'd just let go. But there's a couple times where the fish would go to a weird spot [00:21:00] and I would follow it. And then slammed your arms. Literal body just turned my arms instead. I just slammed, I hit my eye in my nose. I didn't say anything. Cause I didn't, I hope nobody saw it, which I don't think they did.
Yeah. Ted, would you out myself now if he saw that? Yeah. Yeah. So More difference about the bows. And so Erica was drawing a let off bow, which is more similar to the compound bows that we hunt with. We had what they call continuous draw so you can keep going. And so you would break it basically.
Yeah. And so those were quicker to let the arrow fly cuz you don't have to get through that valley. The thing about the kid, the. The more junior lead off bow. Bow is that you could pull back and theoretically hold it longer. Okay. To wait for a shot. If there's a bunch of 'em jumping up and you wanna pick one out, you can in theory do that easier than you could with ours cuz you'd be holding more weight.
Yeah. You're not holding attention. Yeah. But that's when I got my fish though. I would, when I was like holding it, when we would see like a flurry coming, I would start to hold it and versus I [00:22:00] had a lot of troubles with reaction time. Yeah. It's hard. So like I would hard just have it held in wait and then let go. Nothing. We probably should have switched you into one of those continuous draw bows, but I really liked what I had. I did. Did like that. Yeah. The let off. What that means for those that don't know is like it's literally letting off probably. It's like usually from 80% of the total poundage of the bow, and I think yours was a 35 to 40 Yeah.
Pound bow. I'm weak. And so back there you're not holding. 35 to 40 pounds, you're holding a lot less. So it allows you to hang out. It's still not easy, but it allows you to hang out. With ours, if you pulled back, you were sitting there holding the full amount of the weight and so we couldn't really, if you wanna do that, you couldn't do it for very long.
Yeah. The, yeah, those bows for people out there listening to this that do bow hunt and you're shooting 70 pounds, Brayden and I. We're not shooting 70 pounds. These are still 40 pound bows. Yeah, for the most part that you're shooting. Yeah. Cuz there's a there's an equal amount of like [00:23:00] speed of draw and you want speed going forward as well.
So if you're not going farther enough back, like it's faster to pull back and let go quickly. But then your velocity is down. Yeah. So then you end up shooting a slower arrow and it doesn't end up where you expect it to. So learning the balance of Exactly how far to pull back in fast enough time.
With enough time for, or with enough velocity to get like the arrow to end up where you want it to at the time you want it to. There's just a lot of having to do it and figure it out. Yeah. No one can tell you like, okay, pull back for about 0.75 seconds and then there's no real, teaching or whatever.
Yeah. Cause it's gonna be different for everybody. And Yeah, but it, once you kinda get the hang of it, you're like, oh, I understand how this works. But like I could not tell you my method of like how I was doing it. I can tell you like a big thing that helped me was at first, every fish I saw jump, I ripped a shot.
And even if it wasn't, perfect, I'd be like looking off to the left and one would jump more to my right. I would swing and I would just let it rip, yeah. Because I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know where I was gonna end up, and I just was trying to figure it out.[00:24:00]
Towards the end of the night, I picked a zone, so I played baseball, and this is sometimes what you would do is you would pick okay, I'm gonna sit on this pitch, I'm gonna sit on a fastball outside part of the plate. I started doing that with bow fishing, where I was like, okay, I'm gonna focus in this, Four or five foot region, and if a fish jumps in there I'm roughly gonna be shooting in this area.
So I would be able to pull back, have the time and actually shoot the fish. Okay. But trying to shoot them all, I was just like all over the place. And then I'd be reeling when the fi perfect fish would jump in the perfect spot that I wanted it to, that I was waiting for, and I wouldn't get a shot.
Yeah. That's it's crazy. There's, it's like a, the patience type thing, like he had to have patience to wait for that spot. But it's so fast. Like your patience. It's so fast. So short. Yeah. It's so fast. Yeah, it was fun. They, the Cajun Beau fishing guys, they picked a good. Event, or like type of activity for us to have enough time to figure it out.
Plus it like really got us into it, I think. Yeah. He [00:25:00] compared, he was like, what we're gonna do is more kin to dove hunting than to like deer hunting the big head. Bow fishing and stuff like that they were talking about, that's more like deer hunting where it's like a big game where you there's more of a, there's strategy, there's like kind of a sneaking up element to it where you're going after one fish where what we are doing is you're just like going for volume and just trying to get amongst 'em and let 'em go and you're just ripping shots and Yeah.
Shooting a lot of 'em. So it's more of like fast paced, high action. But Ted was even like, dude, I've done I've shot thousands and thousands of these things. Like I prefer to big head hunt. Or big head bow fish now, because it's just it's a little bit more of a challenge. It's different, it's, you're hunting one fish, whereas what we were doing, it's just, straight dopamine the whole time.
Yeah. You're just like, ah. Yeah. And so like the makeup of this lake was interesting when we got there. I asked, so what's the average depth because it's muddy water, you can't see Yeah. Anything. There's cypress trees stuck up everywhere. But you have no concept of how deep it is or anything.
And they said where the area that we were in, probably [00:26:00] average six feet and where we would see the most activity. I heard Ted talking a few times about these flats, like shallow flats. And so it's almost like the fish were more responsive and when you got 'em in that shallower water and they have less room to, where to go and yeah, that would be these flurries when we'd hit those spots and Okay.
It was. Pandemonium was fun. So we're selling bow fishing gear, like we're starting to sell a lot of it. Yep. For somebody getting into bow fishing, like how do you even start? If, do you find a bow fishing group that's near you that you can go out and have an experience like you guys did? Or do you just go out, like you have a boat and you just go for it?
Like how do you get into it? I actually was talking to my wife about this because I think if you think about bow fishing as though we did it, it's very prohibitive. Yeah. Because we had a fully kitted out boat meant That's what this what I was thinking. Yeah. Huge boat, wide deck, tons of walking area, the light system, all that stuff.
That was an expensive kit. But from the boat perspective, like you could do it in a little John boat. If you can get out there with a [00:27:00] trolling motor and find these fish or whatever however you can get out and motor around that is an option. But then there's a lot of people that will just straight up walk a shore of a creek.
Cuz where I smallmouth fish, I see a ton of carp just in shallow water. Yeah. And you just don't wanna spook 'em is really the only thing there. And so you can do it that way too. Okay. From the kit perspective, what's great about Cajun is they sell these kits ready to go. You literally just have to put it all together and take it out to the water.
So it comes with the arrows the reel, the rope or the line, all that stuff, ready to roll. And it's not, it's like you were saying earlier, is anybody that. It can go, you don't have to have any kind of prior bow experience at all. If you've watched somebody shoot a bow on anything, you figure out how to draw it. Yeah. I had never shot a trad bow my whole life. And that is definitely the most transferrable skill to what we were doing. Yeah. But we've we all figured it out in one night. But like I'm not necessarily interested in, I am, if I had money, I was mad at, I'd have a boat fishing boat for sure.
But, What I'm [00:28:00] most like intrigued by and what I'll probably end up doing is getting a rig so that I can frog gig like I really like at my grandpa's farm. We have this big quarry and there's gigantic frogs there. And being able to shoot them and then reel them in is a really cool thing. And then we also have a couple of carp in there that probably need to go.
So while I'm fishing, I might just have it in that boat with me and if I see one, I might just go ahead and pop it. But. Yeah, there's the, there's different kinds of bow fishing for sure. And like I think most folks would be doing it where they're actually on their feet, like in a kind of waiting or on the bank looking for 'em.
Okay. And I'm sure there are guides out there cuz you know, even, yeah, the charters, Cajun guys talked about going out with some people and places and look it up and see what's out there. If you want to do it the way we did. I'm sure somebody exists, a group out there that talks and people have boats and wanna take new people out. Yeah. I'm sure you could find something to jump shoot the jumpers. Ted said he was down in Louisiana and I think he said it was Louisiana and they were shooting [00:29:00] reds. Yeah. From a fan boat. Yeah that'd be sick. That'd be a lot of fun.
And then you, obviously, those are eaters, you're gonna keep those and eat good that night. I don't know if they jump. They probably just shoot 'em when they're tailing. Yeah. It's like flats and stuff where you can see their tails and you shoot at 'em. That would be a ton of fun. That would be I would almost see it as in between the big heads and the Yeah.
Silvers where there's, You're chasing 'em in shallow water and shooting at 'em. Yeah. Versus them jumping. But yes, those would be fish you would for sure eat. The only thing that would be different in that scenario is if you, you do limits on red fish. So you go, you shoot your limit, you're done.
Like you could be done in an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas what we did, we started at six 30 and got off the water at midnight almost 1:00 AM. Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. And you get a lot more. Fun out of shooting the invasive stuff that, yeah, there's no limits on. Awesome. It was a blast. I would do it again.
It was fun. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Had it not been so fun, I don't think I would've loved. Loved the bug tornado. [00:30:00] Yeah. So much. But it was a good time. Yeah. You were sitting there when all the bugs were going off and you said, this is like a fear factor episode, and made me laugh and I inhaled like a handful, these thugs, and it made me laugh even more.
It was just like a bad cycle. Yeah. It was definitely worth all the bugs and it was a great time. Definitely something you should check out. Obviously, if you don't want to go drop three, $400 on a setup, you try to find a group locally that I'm sure these people. And I'm meaning like bow fishing, people will love to share the sport.
Oh yeah. If you just hit up somebody that you find out there and go. But big shout out from our crew to the Cajun guys for taking us out, fed us, treat us like kings. You know this really. Helped us get all the fish in, which saved us time and gave us more shots. And yeah, they really did it upright.
Yeah. One more thing real quick before we wrap it. The cool thing about bow fishing is like our compound bows that we deer hunt with, you're not gonna, I'm not gonna let Erica shoot my bow and she won't let me shoot [00:31:00] hers because it's set up for us specifically. These bow fishing bows, like you can pass 'em around and anybody can use 'em.
There's no customization that you can really mess up. So that was just, One thing I wanted to throw out there. It's not like you have you don't need your own boat to go with people. If they have a bow, they would let you use it, I'm sure. Yeah. Draw length, a site, set up, all that stuff doesn't matter.
On these, you can address the draw weight. Yeah. From person to person. Really easy. But yeah, it is, it does translate very well to sharing. Yeah. All right, if you're listening, make sure you log this show and go wild. We've got a ton of cool reward stuff coming up this summer with our partners, gun Broker, free shirts, stickers, who knows what else?
Fun stuff. We're gonna come out, so log this episode and go wild. And then we will see you all next week. Bye. See you everybody, all.
