"Polar" Bowfishing is for kids of all ages

I was invited to a town named Rome, Wisconsin by my friends Jeff and Cindy Braun at AMS Bowfishing. They had sent me some pictures from a young man named Adam Toboyek and said there were lots of carp coming up to breath oxygen through the openings in the ice. The pictures that Adam took were incredible! All those fish he harvested! I grabbed my bow and arrows and met with my friends on the ice and I couldn't believe it. There were carp everywhere. I have never shot so many carp in such a short period of time in my whole life.

Adam is a teenager who lives in the Rome area and I have never seen anybody whack and stack the way that kid can do it! That day we left with four large barrels of carp! Adam was giving most of them to a mink farm and smoking the rest for his family and friends.

While I was there I thought to myself that this is the perfect sport for young kids who are looking for fun, because the action is endless! So I decided to take Michael Jones (8 years old) and Dominic Hoeppner on their first ice bowfishing adventure. Dominic is 12 years old and this was his first "polar" bowfishing experience. Here's the story in Dominic's own words.

Bowfishing With Ray Howell

The evening before my bowfishing trip, I slept overnight at Karen and Ray's house where my cousin Michael and I practiced shooting at a paper fish on a target. We missed every time, but got pretty close. The next morning we gathered all the boots and hats and gloves and everything we needed.

We got to the area where the fish were supposed to be, got our bows and arrows ready, and went out on a small peninsula. Michael, Ray and I went out into the water. We went in as deep as our boots would let us and waited. We waited and waited, but not too far away, there was a huge group of fish splashing around. We were hoping they would come close enough for a shot.

Ray took Michael up onto a different shore and after a few minutes, I went up too. Unfortunately, one of my feet sunk into some mud and I got some water in my boot. I got up to the shore, wrung out my sock and followed them farther down the shore on the ice.

We saw lots of fish, but most we either missed and scared away, hit and scared away, or were just out of our reach. Then I saw a fin close enough to hit. Michael tried for it but shot short. I knew I hit it when my line tightened and began moving left and right. When I started reeling in my catch, the line went slack. Although I didn't catch it, it made me really want to actually catch one.

We saw an orange-colored fish under some ice. I thought it was another dead one until it moved out from under the ice. Michael and I shot at it back and forth until Michael hit it for our first catch.

After a while, I saw a fish about the same distance from the shore as the one I hit. I moved out closer to the edge of the water, and the ice I was standing on broke. I fell in and I was scared until my feet touched the bottom. I jumped to get myself back unto the ice. Ray pulled me in and I wrung out my socks again and kept going. Man was that cold!

After a while, we were waiting for some fish when I saw a fin very close to shore and not moving. I hit it and I reeled it in and it was dead.

We were walking along the shore bank to the truck when I saw one more fish near a log. I missed, it disappeared, and then it was getting dark so we had to go home. Ray went through the water while Michael and I took the "long way" back. We got to the truck at the same time, because Ray had sunk into some water up to the top of his legs. We packed up, took a couple of pictures of our fish and went home.

By Dominic Hoeppner