Bloggin' Umholtz

I shot an arrow into the air...

         You can all thank TeflonMike for today’s entry. In an email a little while ago he recounted to me a story of muskie fishing using a rather novel live bait. You’ll have to ask him for the story. It’s his, not mine. In his defense I will tell you I know of similar methodologies being used around these parts so I do not doubt the veracity of his story. Today’s entry will be about a different type of fishing…or is it hunting? I’ve never been quite sure.

         I am a bowhunter. Not a very successful one by most standards, but still I am an aficionado of the sport. Recently, because of health concerns, I have entered the realm of crossbow hunting and my actual hunting time has been greatly reduced from years past. But years and years ago, when I first started hunting with a bow, I practiced year round, and took every opportunity to shoot my bow that I could find. (Don’t worry, the neighborhood cats were safe…wish I could say the same for some of the neighbors. Just kiddin…honestly…no really)

         One of these opportunities was something called bowfishing. Bow fishing, in its simplified form was simply attaching a string to an arrow, shooting it at a fish, and if you hit it, pulling it back in. Simple right? Now add in that little thing called light refraction (stick a pencil in a glass of water and you’ll see what I mean), the fact that the best bowfishing was to be had at night, in the Susquehanna River, in a canoe, shooting while standing up, and simple goes right out the window.

         Nevertheless, this is what we did. Four of us would take two canoes over to the Susquehanna River, not to far from Scranton, PA and hanging a lantern over the bow, would slowly make our way upriver along the shore, looking for carp and suckers. The Fish Commission, not being totally inept does regulate bowfishing and limits the species you can arrow to mostly bottom feeders like suckers and carp. You definitely can’t arrow trout…or muskies.

         One canoe would head up the east shore, one canoe up the west. About halfway through the night, we would cross over, switching sides and bowfish our way back to the landing. Interesting things would occur on these nightly forays. A not so rational and armed individual once accused us of stealing outboard motors. I nearly shot a great blue heron one night when it exploded from the underbrush five feet in front of me. When we passed under bridges, it wasn’t unusual to be attacked with M-80’s from above. Kids…go figure…probably some of my neighbors…may they rest in peace.

         The deal was this. The guy in the bow – the shooter – got five shots or a fish, and then you changed places with the guy paddling. One night, my buddy John (usual disclaimer on names here. I’m not sure the statute of limitations has passed) and I were paddling up the west shore, while Steve and Mike were paddling up the east shore. There was a light fog rising off the water and at times you couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of you. We paddled upriver taking some nice carp and missing some others, until we got to where we would normally meet Steve and Mike. They weren’t there. We crossed over to the east shore and still no Steve and Mike.

         Now most of the time we were close to shore while paddling and in only 18 inches or so of water, still there were holes that were deeper and it was a river, so there were currents, also. John and I began to get worried. I was in the bow and suggested we stop fishing and go find Steve and Mike. John readily agreed. So sitting down, picking up my paddle we started down the east shore through the patchy fog.

         Rounding a bend I noticed a strange pulsating glow out toward the middle of the river and directed John to paddle towards it. As we got closer I could make out the outline of a canoe. Steve hollered for us not to come to close because they were grounded on a sandbar so we held off about thirty feet away and dropped an anchor. I asked him what was up.

         “Watch,” he said. With that he pulled on the string that was leading from the bow into the water. About fifty feet in front of the canoe, the water exploded and I could see the white shaft of the arrow dancing in the spray.

         “Whatcha got?” I asked, half grinning.

         “Muskie.” He replied between puffs on his cigarette. “We’re waiting for it to die. It already tried to kill us once. I ain’t given it a second chance.”

         So while we sat there, waiting for the demise of the fish, Steve related what happened. They were paddling along, chasing down a school of small carp and Steve was preparing to arrow one. He had just come to full draw when out of the corner of his eye he caught the shadow of a much larger fish. Thinking it was a big carp, he swung and fired. (Sorta like Cheney) That’s when all hell broke lose. The fish took off on a dead run. Steve sat down and held on to the bow. The fish began towing the canoe. At some point it turned and charged straight back at them, jumping clear of the water right in front of the bow. It hit the lantern smashing the globe. That accounted for the eerie pulsating glow. It then turned and headed towards the middle of the river, canoe following behind, until all of them came to rest on the sandbar. And that’s where we found them, fish, canoe, Steve and Mike.

         I feel it is important to relate to you at this point that while we have been known to stretch the interpretation of the fish and game laws, my friends and I, for the most part, try to follow them. The one exception to this would be the accidental killing of a species that is not in season. Most people would have retrieved the arrow and let the muskie float downstream for fear of being caught with an illegal catch. We didn’t. We could see no reason for wasting the resource. When the muskie finally expired. We brought it into the canoe. It was huge. Found out later it was 52 inches huge! I had a pair of hip boots in the bottom of the canoe so we slipped it inside one of those (The tail stuck out the end) and nervously headed for the boat launch.

         Since we had become fairly regular at bowfishing this particular stretch of river, it wasn’t uncommon to find a fish cop waiting for us when we returned to our trucks. We hoped that wouldn’t be the case that night. And, as luck would have it, it wasn’t. The following weekend, all enjoyed a fine meal of baked stuffed muskie, prepared by my Mom followed, of course, by another night of bowfishing.

         Anybody want to buy an outboard motor? Cheap.