Paddles

[whisker]

"The FORCE you must use young spoon walker!"

" USE THE FORCE ! "

[Wild Bill]

The Paitience and information of my guide this year is very appreciated as well as educational. Has been fun every minute. Just gotta get one STUCK.

I will see you Sat. 5:30am on the dock Yoda

[btbowhunter]

we were there on the first weekend. don't know how many of you fellas were there or not, but we got a chance to feed jim a little as well. quite a character. good guy.

[Sorny]

Originally Posted by btbowhunter

we were there on the first weekend. don't know how many of you fellas were there or not, but we got a chance to feed jim a little as well. quite a character. good guy.

ha ha thats awesome. He did give us a few laughs too. Even told us about his 50 head of sheep at home. Nice guy.

[whisker]

Originally Posted by Wild Bill

I will see you Sat. 5:30am on the dock Yoda

See you there.

I reckon if there were a "Yoda" on the river tho',..it'd have to be Eric.

[Ty Stromquist]

cant believe you guys are skipping another tourney. I was hoping all on this forum can be there. Its sounding real fun.

[Eric]

I can't believe anyone would drop $21 per tag and then not give 100% towards filling it. Too bad those tags aren't transferable, I wouldn't mind shooting another paddle for some of you guys who'd rather be shooting at baby carp!

[goose h8r]

Originally Posted by Eric

I can't believe anyone would drop $21 per tag and then not give 100% towards filling it. Too bad those tags aren't transferable, I wouldn't mind shooting another paddle for some of you guys who'd rather be shooting at baby carp!

LOL

After playing bumper boats up by the dam, you can have that.

I tried like hell to get a fish roll off the troller downriver last weekend but the fish had other plans. Spent from 10 til 5 on the river downriver, and saw a grand total of 4 paddlefish. 2 of those were 50-60 yards away doing the missle, 1 I just caught a glimps of about 30 yards away right before pontoon Dike blew the hole, and the other came off the bank where you would expect to find one....hit his head on the boat when he went under and I almost fell off the deck trying to spin around for a shot.

So we had fun boating a dozen and a half Grassies, abunch of Gar, and some others drifting the banks between holes.

Yes, Calamus is pretty much all small commons....clouds of them. Anyone that can honestly say they wont have fun shooting 400 times in a day reguardless of the fish size needs thier head examined.

Bowfishing is fun...playing bumper boats isnt.

[whisker]

Sorry, but speaking for myself,...I'd rather eat 20 paddlefish dinners,....shoot 400 times a day 100 miles closer to home,...and put the couple hundred bucks it would cost towards other adventures. Looks like that first place payout doesn't even pay for dinner.
You guys shoot em up tho' and have fun!

The first two hours of daylight are the productive shooting times on the tail waters. After that it gets to be a real fiasco. After boats charge the channel 100 times and drift it back, plus the other twenty boats "stalking" fish at half throttle,...it's no wonder the fish are down when people show up later in the day.

I wonder about the closing of the basins to archery myself. Open to snagging, but closed to archery? I'm sure it would impact the population less than the snagging season.
If they allow for a scientific release of a certain number of tags, they must consider that number of dead fish is "acceptable". I'm going to lobby my few contacts for the basins to be open to archery paddlefish.

[goose h8r]

I was up there at the dam Sunday morn til about 11.

We got on the river just after shooting time, wife made us late. Boats were spaced 10 yards apart in a straight line 3/4 the way acrossed the river. Kinda looked like a naval fleet.

We saw 1 place that fish were rolling on a pretty consitent basis. We went to move in slowly and about the time we got where we needed to be a guy motored right over where the fish were rolling, one rolled at the side of his boat when he came over the spot. He then looked at me and smiled as he dropped anchor less than 10 yards in front of me. After that I was so pissed I wanted a fish to roll at the side of his boat so I could put a hole in it.

Fish rolled for 20 minutes tops...except for the little paddlefish refuge. I maybe saw 15 shots fired by the navy in the current the whole morning. After that it was sneaking around towards the SD side trying to get lucky and have one go airborne within range. A fish would go airborne about every 5-10 minutes with no ryme or reason on where or why they were doing it...at least I could never see a pattern. Closest 2 were about 15 yards and I did get pretty damn close but no cigar.

When I bowfish I like to bowfish. Not worry about the next boat or worry about getting run over or worry about going over a imaginary line. I like to checkout new water, constantly move, shoot and shoot often.

I like chasing paddlefish, just aint gonna do it on a weekend anymore and the dam is not my thang.

[goose h8r]

Im actually gonna bring that up to the BON.

It would allow people to spread out more and not near as many fish would be lost after they were hit in the calmer water. After shooting fish on the channel banks around here I know how easy it is to lose a fish in heavy current.

[whisker]

I watched closer this year ( been up there 10-12 times), and after the first week of 40 heroes running around all day, the chances decrease daily of getting any numbers of fish up. I'd be in favor of opening the basins, plus possibly even having two separate two week seasons with a two week break in the middle, to ease the pressure. It's not like archery is going to decimate the population by giving us a little better edge.

Sounds like there was quite a circus down stream this year too.

[obert1]

Down stream has sucked for us this year too. Thinking about heading up tonight and fishing in the am, but don't have a ride til next weekend. Anyone heading out tomorrow by themselves and wouldn't mind another let me know. Otherwise I'll go sweat the berries off and hang some tree stands.

[Ty Stromquist]

Originally Posted by Eric

I can't believe anyone would drop $21 per tag and then not give 100% towards filling it. Too bad those tags aren't transferable, I wouldn't mind shooting another paddle for some of you guys who'd rather be shooting at baby carp!

Well I already spent 2 days up there and got pretty burned out on that. I never went up to the dam as I was there on a weekend and just head horror stories. So I just hung out down stream and treated the trip as a bowfishing trip with a tag for a bonus paddlefish if it presented itself.

Keith and I have been really pumped about getting into this tourney this weekend. We have worked every weekend of all the other tourneys all year long so this is our only chance. I kinda think it sounds like fun. Im sure not going for any money.

The more BON members show to these tourneys the better.

[Yellab]

Originally Posted by Eric

I can't believe anyone would drop $21 per tag and then not give 100% towards filling it. Too bad those tags aren't transferable, I wouldn't mind shooting another paddle for some of you guys who'd rather be shooting at baby carp!

When it costs $250 to $300 to go up for a weekend, that $21 starts to seem pretty insignificant.