Can any old bow be rigged out to bow fish? I have a place to do this and someone has offered to give me and old bow collecting dust just wondering what i need to do to set it up. Any help appreciated. Thanks.

any bow can be rigged to bowfish, compound or recurve. You'll need a bow reel of some sort. Old style shoot thru works good on recurves, newer ones work better on compounds. You will need some fish arrows also, get a couple extra ones too, you will break points if bottom is rocky.

Make sure the poundage is cranked down. I shoot 50 lbs max and most shoot less. The reasons being you will get tired from pulling back a high poundage bow and the most important reason is you will not destroy your arrows and tips when you miss and hit a rock or something.

I appreciate the tips. The bow my friend is giving me for this is an old Hoyt compound. OLD!. But i think i can make it work. Ebay had some cheap set ups to mount on there. Do yall know of cheaper places to find the stuff i need? Im interested in trying this but not enough to sink a ton of $ in it yet.

You can get a Cajun bowfishing kit off amazon for less than $35. It has rest, which is a must have, line, arrow and drum to spoil the line. Granted the drum spool sucks as you have to wrap the line around the drum instead of reeling it in, but it will work. You could step up to a muzzy kit for about $70

Second season in northport had some bowfishing stuff. You can buy a reel and seat for around $50 I may have a muzzy fish hook rest somewhere around the house you can have

I really appreciate the help on that. I almost went in 2nd season today but ran short on time and passed. I may go check that out tmrw. thanks yall. Going to check the amazon site too.

I'd go ahead and get a muzzy reel. Those windup drums suck. A compound isn't ideal, but it will work until you find out if you like it. Get some finger tabs for it. Turn the poundage all the way down.

i like the zebco fishing reel type setup. I just never had good luck with my AMS bottle type retriever. of course, I have shot a couple arrows off by not clicking the release button, but reeling in a fish is so much better with the fishing reel style.

I have the perfect place to shoot grass carp. Im in a fishing club and one of the lakes has too many grass carp. They want them out. And they are very big. So i think its an opportunity to learn there if i can hang on to one.

I would go with the AMS retriever. Shot many fish with both them and reels. You have a much faster reload with the retriever after a miss, plus no button to foul things up. DOn't get a slotted one though unless you are going to shoot 8 ft sharks. I live just up the road and have both if you wanna look at em. I can help you shoot them big ole carp too

Yeah man you don't need any gear just invite me along

I can have 1 guest at a time and will gladly take yall so i can see more of this. Ive been 1x in my life. I enjoyed it but never had the chance to go again. I will PM you guys with some dates i can go and see if we can work something out.

I'd like to go but seriously you can come by and see the gear nothing expected