How to Make a Fishing Bow

Perhaps you’ve just gotten started in bowfishing, and you want to do it for as little cash as possible. Luckily with bowfishing, this sport doesn’t cost you a lot of cash to get started. You can even make your current bow into a fishing bow so that you won’t have to go out and buy this buy right away. In this way, you can decide if you like the sport.

How do you make a bow fishing bow? Bow fishing has the advantage that you can quickly make a bowfishing bow for those spur-of-the-moment outings. After you have made the reel, install it to the bow and hit the water. You don’t need anything fancy for this sport but you can.

What You Will Need

• Roll of electrical tape
• Wallpaper scraper
• Colored and braided nylon twine
• Plastic soda bottle

You have a few different ways that you can make a reel for your bow, and the important thing is not to get too bogged down with the details. The most important thing is that it works. Outside of that, it doesn’t matter. With a reel for bowfishing, you don’t necessarily need anything fancy. You just need something that will work well.

Getting Started

To begin, first you will take the black electrical tape, and you will wrap it around the bottle. As you put on the tape, you will use the wallpaper scraper and put part of this onto the bottle.

Next, you take the fishing line and put it into the bottle. You take the bottle cap and screw it on with the fishing line in the bottle. Then, you will throw the fishing line out away from you. This is so that you can reel it back in onto the bottle.

After you have the done this, you will use the electric tape again to tape it onto your bow at the end where the cap is located. Once you have done this, you’re ready for a night on the waters bowfishing some cap.

It works just as well as if you had a bow tailored specifically to bowfishing.

Nothing Special Needed

Granted, you could go out and buy a bowfishing bow for the sport, but what if you’re not sure that you will like this sport? Not everyone needs to buy a bow fishing bow because you can get a regular bow and make up your own reel so that it works just as well.

The key is not how much you paid for something but that it works. In comparison to some of the other sports, bowfishing costs little because you don’t need much gear. You can go as big or as little as you want with this sport. It costs around $400 if you want to get a top-of-the-line bowfishing bow. As a beginner, however, you may want to start out with a little less.

What Kind of Bow Do I Need?

You can use just about any type of bow for bowfishing. As long as it has strings and cables, it should work. You can build one of these bows quite cheaply.

When you go to get a bow, keep in mind that you don’t want anything with too much draw weight. Unlike with deer hunting or turkey hunting, bowfishing has you aiming at the fish multiple times in a session.

Too much draw weight will tire you out, and it will make fishing unpleasant. Not to mention, it’s not necessary for piercing the fish.

Some of the bow brands good for bowfishing include:

• Oneida Eagle Bows
• Cajun Bows
• PSE Archery
• AMS Bowfishing
• Diamond Archery
• Darton

What to Look for in a Bowfishing Bow

In general, to get a good bow for bowfishing, you want a short and light bow that you can shoot accurately and quickly. Bowfishing brings you a different kind of hunting because you may take up to 300 shots in a single night.

You probably don’t want to use your hunting bow for this because these bows take quite a beating. Because of that, you want a bow that will be tough as nails. These bows get thrown on the deck, thrown on the beach and they get covered in fish blood and fish slime and everything in between.

Most likely, you want to have your own fishing bow for this.

What Happens if I Don’t Have an Old Bow?

Let’s say that your hunting bow is all you have. Not to worry, you can find a couple of different places where you can find a cheap bowfishing bow. You can buy them on eBay or Craigslist for next to nothing. Garage sales, pawnshops and flea markets are other cheap places to find one.

When you first get started, I wouldn’t recommend you spend any more than $25 on a bowfishing bow. You can spend more later as you grow more accustomed to the sport. The fish don’t care what kind of bow you use to skewer them.

Add Fingersavers to the Bow

This adds a little more cushion to your bow to save your fingers from the bite of the bowstring. The problem comes from shooting repetitively. After a while, it will start to hurt your fingertips, and you won’t have as accurate of shots. This can improve your accuracy as a whole as well.

Fingersavers will keep your fingers and hands from getting eat to pieces. It protects you from open wounds and blisters. Especially when you shoot a lot like how you do in bowfishing, you’re going to want these.

You could also choose to use a glove, but the problem is how this restricts your finger movement. Fingersavers allow for you to shoot without a problem. If you don’t know how to put fingersavers on, you can simply take them to a bow shop, and they should have the necessary gear to pop them onto your bow.

How to Build a PVC Bow

Let’s say that you don’t have a bow for bowfishing, but you want to use your creativity. Instead of buying one on Craigslist or eBay, you could build one from PVC pipe. Building a PVC pipe bow doesn’t take too much know-how, and you can find easy-to-use materials.

You only need a few materials to make a PVC pipe bow. Most people will finish this project in under an hour.

Things That You Will Need:

• Thin, high-strength rope
• PVC pipe of 6-foot 3/4″
• Duct tape
• 5/16 diameter fiberglass rods, 4 feet long
• Several wooden dowels around 1/4 – 3/8 in diameter
• Measuring tape
• Knife
• Hacksaw 
  

Step #1: Getting the Pipe Ready

First, you have to decide how long you want your bow to be. You can get a good estimate by looking at the draw length. To do this, you will hold out your arms at a 90-degree angle. Then you measure this from fingertip to fingertip and divide by 2.5.

The longer that you make the pipe, the lighter that the draw weight will be.

Step #2: Cut the PVC Pipe

After you have figured out the desired length of your PVC pipe, you will cut it. You will add 2 inches to the bow length that you have decided on. This is a highly personalized process, and you will have to make some of these decisions for yourself.

Step #3: Make a Mark 1 Inch from the Ends

Now that you have made the mark 1 inch from the ends of the PVC pipe, you will cut into the PVC pipe only deep enough to get through the outer wall. This will make it deep enough. You want to make the cut narrower that the size of the rope because this will help to hold it in place.

Be sure not to widen it too much because this could have a negative impact.

Step #4: Stringing Your Bow

To begin, you will take your rope and tie it into one of the ends. Next, you take the loop, put it over the pipe and seat it into the loops. You will want to hold the cord still within the slot. You will want to check the bridge height.

After you have finished this step, you will be ready to take your bow with you for bowfishing. As you can see, you have a couple of different options when it comes to making a fishing bow. Like with all other bows, whenever you finish with using your bow, you should unstring it because this keeps the strain off the string and the pipe.