Winter bowfishing

Don’t let a frozen lake stop you from enjoying a sport you love! I use my portable fish house as a dark house and cut a hole just as spear fishermen do. The key to success from my experience is to talk to guys spearing northern pike to see if they are seeing an carp and at what time. I have yet to have any of them not tell me what they are seeing because the carp mess with their success. One must be patient when attempting this style of bowfishing, but when you see one get ready because you will certainly have a school come cruising through. Typically we fish in 4 to 6 feet of water so make sure your bow is cranked up on poundage to help you get to the bottom where they will be at. Also try to use the heaviest arrow you can find…I use a solid stainless steel arrow (custom made) which is fairly heavy. 2 buddies and myself were able to harvest 73 carp bowfishing through the ice in a weekend. Hopefully that will help keep some of the die hards bowfishing in the winter….Good Luck!

Is it really legal to cut holes that big in the ice? That hole is big enough that a variety of animals much less anyone could fall through under the ice. The reason I ask the bigest hole we can legally make is twelve inces weather it be round or square.

I use to live in northern mn where most people spear pike and white fish and that is about the same size i have seen in any dark house i have been in most guys when they move there house will mark it with tree branches and some fill it in with snow and mark them

I have never tried it threw the ice but have thought about it think im going to give it a try know the perfect lil lake to try it on great post

I use to live in northern mn where most people spear pike and white fish and that is about the same size i have seen in any dark house i have been in most guys when they move there house will mark it with tree branches and some fill it in with snow and mark them

If the person cutting the hole is responsible they’ll leave some branches in the hole once they leave so guys know there’s a soft spot to be found. Most guys are VERY considerate about doing this. I can attest to how dangerous an unmarked spearing hole can be… when I was in high school I went into a spear hole up to my armpits on a day when the temps were 25+ below zero. The spearer must have just moved when I showed up as there was no skim ice on the hole… just the blown snow that disguised the location.

Man was I cold after that dunking!

That would be pretty cold james cant imagine falling in water when its that cold. putting branches in the hole is most often what i have seen done but have seen then outlined with branches with nothing in the hole and seen a few with only one small stick next to it and only a couple with nothing the ones poorly marked or not at all are a really bad thing waiting to happen

I absolutely agree with marking the hole once the house is removed and we also replace the ice chucks back into the hole to ensure someone sledding doesn’t hit them and injure themselves.

That is another great point that could be bad

We use to scuba dive under the ice.The hole was a six foot triangle.We would slide ice block under the ice.When we were done we put up wooden snow fence that we removed the next weekend,longs if there was vehicle traffic.Later on we went to a ice shack set up.