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For avid anglers seeking new and thrilling experiences, crossbow fishing, also known as “bow fishing,” presents an exciting opportunity to take fishing to a whole new level. After years of honing your skills in traditional fishing methods, the allure of bow fishing has finally beckoned, promising a unique and exhilarating adventure on the waters. If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the chance to try your hand at this growing sport, look no further.
Bow fishing has been steadily gaining popularity in recent years, captivating fishing enthusiasts with its blend of archery and angling prowess. Before you embark on this new journey, however, a fishing license and the right gear are prerequisites for success. In this guide, we’ll equip you with the essential knowledge and tips to kickstart your crossbow fishing experience, ensuring that you make a splash in this thrilling world of bow fishing.
Getting Started - Getting The Proper Gear For Bow Fishing
License
You will need to obtain your fishing license in your country first before you go give it a shot.
Equipment To Use:
- Reel – A few options to go with. There are quite a few models of crossbows you can get that have the reel built into them. You can also take the DIY approach and install a mount that will safely secure one onto a regular crossbow. Another way, I saw on YouTube, is a wrist strap holding the reel for the crossbow.
- Bolts – for “hunting fish”, you have a few variants in shapes and sizes but generally, they are all the same in principle. There will be a hole that you tie your fishing line to on the bolt.
- Crossbow – Depending if you want to stay on the cheaper side of things or get the higher-end crossbows, it does not cost too much for a budget-friendly pistol crossbow. Yet, there are also fishing crossbows over a thousand dollars. You can even get a crossbow not meant for fishing and attach a reel with a mount.
Loading and Cocking
Now getting into loading and cocking the fishing crossbow. At this point, you would already have your fishing line knotted with your best knot onto your bolt.
First, put the crossbow down to the ground and most bows will have a spot for your foot, you step onto this with a solid footing,
Then attach your cocking rope by placing the center of the rope onto the lip/groove for it. Take both ends, while reaching down to the bowstring, attach both hooks to the rope, and ensure that it is tight to the side of the rail. Now you can take the handles and pull straight up with it until you hear it lock in place.
Safety Tip – Don’t wear cocking-rope ever around your neck when shooting
Remove cocking rope, don’t put your hands/arms in this area just in case anything happened to go off.
Put it on safety, take the bolt, near the front end and start feeding it down the shooting rail of the crossbow until it is set into place. Having your hands and arms out of the area is key to safety when loading and cocking for bigger crossbows.
How to use a Crossbow to Fish in Action
Choosing Location To Bow Fish
When seeking out a good place to go bow fishing, is one of the most imperative decisions to determine if you will get lucky and get something or not.
I have seen people use crossbows for fishing for both freshwater and saltwater.
Another rule of thumb is to ensure the water is not too deep, you should be able to see clearly in the water. And which the recommended depth of water is 3-4 feet by experts at Fisher and Hunter
Conclusion
Crossbow fishing is a lot of fun and some will find it a nice way of practicing their aim. When I tried it, I was fishing in a shallow river and near a rock wall on the bottom of the riverbed, there were several brown trout and they were staying still as a rock. I first tried to lure them with flies, but that did not work so after rigging up the bolt and crossbow, I landed my first fish by a crossbow!
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