Here are some of the pictures from the 'weekend' bowfishing adventure. (Ohio River Extravaganza)

This was a nice trip for us because there was no tournament for us to worry about, no set schedule, no seminars to teach, we had the dog with us... we just hung out, ate and shot a couple of fish.

We met up with Doctor Robster down at the Grand Chain Lodge. We shared a spiffy little cabin with him. It was right on the Ohio River.

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Kendall on the Piscivorous Pontoon, also known as the Central Illinois Rough Fish Control Unit. You can see the cabins in the background.
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First fishes of trip.
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Rob can shoot too.
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Back at the cabin Rob explains how the world would run if he were King. LOL. We had a lot of laughs.
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Our night bowfishing trip. We took a short roadtrip to different waters.

Dang, it was cold out there!

Silver carp. (gah, I always look like a stoner!) It looks like it survived being hit by a prop.. it didn't survive the arrow in the back and out through the head tho'. ;)
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Kendall got two of these giants that evening.
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A first for me!
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It was messed up when I shot it, so I think I did it a favor by putting it out of it's misery. :confused:

Dave and Joanne were down there too but they headed back up home that night. I'm not sure what they shot.

Sunday we headed up to Carlyle.

Rob was going to go with us and shoot bigheads but he got a nail in his van tire and decided that he should probably go home while it was still daylight.

The people bank fishing around the spillway were almost shoulder to shoulder. It was pretty hard to bowfish up there with all those people so we stayed closer to the ramp and also went up the old riverbed. The glare on the water was bad from the low angle of the sun (it was about 6pm) so we didn't see many bigheads. If you wanted to shoot gar, you could shoot until you couldn't pull the bow back anymore.

Kendall did get this 24+ lb bighead.
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We shot a couple of gar, another bighead and a silver before we called it a day.

The next morning (Monday) we hit the spillway bright and early (for us). There were a lot less people out, which was nice.
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All those hook and line fishermen out there means there's plenty of discarded/lost line to get tangled in. Be sure to have a knife handy.
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We also got some bigheads wearing 'jewelry'.
(ouch... right in the eye!)
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This giant snagging hook was stuck in the side of one of the bigheads.
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Not too long after we got there, a motley crew of buddies from Danville and PA showed up and started hammering bigheads.
If I could figure out how to put video on here... you could watch them shooting bigheads... and Johnnyb dancing!

JohnnyB got this nice sized spotted gar.
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Group shots:
(I think we shot at least 54 bigheads between the two boats but a lot of them are not in the picture because we had given away a bunch and we also had cleaned several and had them in the cooler already.)

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Kendall's big fish of the day. 25lbs 14 oz.
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Wow, looks like you guys had a great time. Cool pic's Christine.

Wowsers...thanks for the rough fish control at the spillway!!

WOW You guys slayed!!!

Chrsitine, ya may have posted about this before but I can't remeber it. How is the ease of cleaning and the taste of the BH's?

Chrsitine, ya may have posted about this before but I can't remeber it. How is the ease of cleaning and the taste of the BH's?

Mmmm Mmm Good! Or to quote a Silo Icon, "Deeeelish!"
They are very similar to Buffalo fish in taste and texture.

As far as cleaning, They aren't the easiest but they're not bad either. We have two instructional links on our website www.illinoisbowfishers.com

http://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2004/07/20.htm
and
http://www.illinoisbowfishers.com/asiancarpchops.pdf

You'll notice there seems to be a lot of waste. But when you get over a hundred pounds of fish (per fisherman) that you can't/won't put back, you can afford it. :cool:

Thankls so much for sharing! I love looking at your pics and hearing about your adventures!

Looks like you had alot of fun Christine and Kendall. Great pics!

Nice article and pictures. Did you tow the rough fish eradicator, or drive it on the blue highway to the lodge?

Great pics!!Was the food at the lodge any better??:confused::rolleyes::)

Fun, I was thinking that I forgot to tell you...

Your assessment was completely accurate. ROTFLMAO It has found it's way into our private vocabulary.

I won't be heading back there for a meal any time soon. I wouldn't say the food was bad. It just wasn't nearly as good as it could have/should have been.

Thats sad.. Its an awesome place in a awesome location that has sooo much potential!! To bad they can't even make a decent ham sandwich or grill cheese..:( It would be a awesome place to go and sit and watch the river and the boats and enjoy a nice steak or grilled fish.

Thanks everybody!

Fungus, you're right, it has a lot of potential. The cabin was pretty nice too. The guy running the place seemed like a nice guy.

The food just seemed like 'industrial food'. Something you'd get at a school cafeteria.

We did eat at the mexican place in Metropolis on Saturday. That was pretty yummy. :D


So, anybody have any good ideas on how to cook paddlefish?