Bowhunting for fish? It works!
Recently I was invited to take photos on the boat with an Orlando fishing guide named Ed McCormick, who uses only a bow and arrow on his fish. His jonboat is rigged up with floodlights on the bow, because shooting at fish is night is presumably easier than during the daytime. So, we met at a place I suggested, Salt Springs, which flows to Lake George and then the St. John’s River in Northeast Florida. We would hopefully load up on tasty mullet and tilapia, the latter thick in the springs as recently as March. This is primitive fishing; judging by arrowheads found on this very patch of shore and water, the ancients fired their arrows at these fish for thousands of years.
We met up at the boat ramp and headed out, watching mullet all around us in the afternoon light. I volunteered to drive the boat and we idled slowly along, Ed and his girlfriend Crystal Ruland firing away. She’s been shooting a bow for about six months, and Ed certainly longer than that. Ed takes clients out for alligator, gar and a variety of saltwater fish that aren’t protected with gamefish status, such as sheepshead, drum and stingray, which they clean and save for clients.
Ed coaxed me into picking up the bow, so I climbed to the bow of the jonboat and nocked an arrow. Ahead of me, mullet raced back and forth, some of them actually zig-zagging. Ye Gods! How are you supposed to hit these fish? Ed said to lead them about a foot…A few minutes went by, but so far, we’d had no luck. Ed estimates that for every hundred shots fired, his clients get about six fish. The water defracts each image, and the fish is actually a little lower than it appears. So, you have to aim low. Combine that with a moving target, and it isn’t easy. I hadn’t picked up a bow in at least 15 years, though once I won an archery contest competing against a bunch of Texas outdoor writers. Shooting at stationary targets in an indoor shooting range…
But then I noticed there seemed to be, sometimes, just the right moment for letting the arrow fly at these fish. That one perfect moment in time. Pass up the medium-sized mullet that flit around and make very narrow targets, and wait for a big one. After missing my first two shots, I was amazed when I fired at two converging fish running along beside each other, really a double-wide target. Whap! The arrow thumped into the side of the bigger fishes chest, and we soon had a big mullet on board. Golden-fried mullet on the table suddenly became a viable option on the menu. Crystal didn’t mind posing with our trophy-sized mullet.
We toured the spring run, past floating clumps of algae that only grow worse each year, feeding off nutrients. The mullet often ducked beneath the algae for cover, and didn’t reappear. Twilight fell, and we cranked up the two portable generators, lighting up the water.
Then the action started. Using the electric motor, we cruised along a stretch of algae that must have been 100 yards long. It was nock the arrow, pull, aim, loose. Over and over, fire at this one, now that one. We reeled each arrow frantically back to the boat for another shot, as mullet fled in every direction.
Our fingers became tired, we fired so many arrows. At one point, Crystal and I scored a double-header, both of us hitting mullet in the head at the same instant. I had pulled down on a big one cruising straight ahead of the boat, and it didn’t matter if I was high or low, the arrow had 14 inches of target, as long I was lined up on him.
Regrettably we found no fat, tasty tilapia waddling around in the shallows, where they would have made very broad targets. We had missed their spawning season, where they dig up huge nests in the shallows, impossible to miss.
The generators buzzed loudly and we prowled up and down the spring run until 10 p.m. and to our surprise, found fewer and fewer targets. I think the mullet were rafting up in mid-creek under the floating mats of algae, well-protected from night herons, egrets and perhaps otters. And our flying arrows. So, we called it a night. Ed and his Diana the huntress girlfriend had to drive back to Orlando, almost two hours. We will meet again soon for a night on Tampa Bay, where Ed has many places where saltwater fish prowl the shallows. Stay tuned. That trip and story is in the October issue of Florida Sportsman magazine and I will post pics of the fine stingrays we shot some time in October.
