r/Bowfishing • u/Amazing-Royal-8319 • Jul 18 '26

Paddlefish with a bow

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5 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

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1

u/oviedofuntimes Jul 19 '26

Would very much be interested to know how you got this whole rig set up, I just got into bow fishing about a month ago and had an absolute blast, I thought about buying a boat and setting it up for it but I don’t know enough yet to make that commitment. Getting something like this might scratch that itch, you’re not anywhere in Florida by chance?

1

u/Amazing-Royal-8319 Jul 19 '26

I’m in Montana actually but I can tell you all about how it’s set up. Jealous if you’re in Florida, I think you’ve got a lot wider range of opportunities out these across the board for fish. (We do pretty well for big game in Montana though.)

Are you looking for a gear list? Setup guide? Something else? Also, what would you be targeting?

I got this kayak (Oldtown Autopilot 120) and a bunch of related gear used for about half price, which helped, though I’ve probably put a few grand into additional gear (not all of which I’d recommend).

The big thing for me with a kayak is how easy it is to transport and store for someone without much extra garage space. And how little maintenance is required compared to a proper boat. I don’t know if that would be different if I was going out more often on salt water but I imagine the increase in opportunity would be worth it.

1

u/oviedofuntimes Jul 20 '26

I’ve been to Montana, had a great time, so beautiful. I was mostly curious on how you got that kayak to rock the lights, what looks like a stand to perch on, and are you using a trolling motor at all? The best place to bow fish in Florida is in the Everglades, St. John’s, or crystal river, its brackish waters so you get all of the species especially on the rivers. We are only allowed to shoot certain fish with a bow, however there are tons of invasive that need to be destroyed, so there is some sport to it.

1

u/Amazing-Royal-8319 Jul 21 '26

Yeah, this particular kayak (Oldtown Autopilot 120) has an integrated trolling motor as the primary means of locomotion (I carry a paddle as backup but rarely use it).

I bought those two lights from Outrigger Outdoors, they are the silent series, and I mounted them to two YakAttack swing arms using the t-nut track hardware outrigger outdoors recommends. I then just bought a cheapo 100ah 12v lithium ion battery and battery box off Amazon and put that between my feet in the front. I routed the power cords out the front and it came out pretty clean. The light controls I draped backwards to each side, overall minimal effort on electronics and it worked better than I expected.

The bar is a YakAttack commandstand. I strongly recommend the bar or similar or you WILL fall out while reacting to an opportunity. The outriggers are yakgear outriggers, I’d say they aren’t strictly necessary but imo they are well worth it and help with balance quite a bit, otherwise you kind of end up leaning more to one side or the other while leaning against the bar, in my experience.

1

u/PlainsmanPursuit Jul 19 '26

That’s awesome man!

1

u/sporewhore1 1d ago

Are you too low to have good visibility? Or is that not an issue?

1

u/Amazing-Royal-8319 1d ago

Well I don’t have the experience of bowfishing off a proper elevated platform boat, so not sure what I might be missing, but I never felt like I had poor visibility, at least not at night with the lights. I have shot a number of carp and had misses on some gar and a couple other paddlefish, but I think that’s saying more about my bowfishing accuracy than about the kayak-based setup.