My friend's Canadian client fell though, and so there was a free spot for me if I drove us to the dusty South Texas town of Three Rivers . We were to meet up with our bowfishing guide at 1300. He showed up a hour late after having the tongue of his trailer welded back on after making a sharp corner and breaking it off. While we were waiting on him we had checked into our Hindu run shithole motel. We ate lunch and were on the water of Choke Canyon res by 1500.
Our guide was Mark Malfa , :
http://www.bigfishbowfishingtexas.com/
I had never been bowfishing before and I was just kinda along for the ride as far as I was concerned. I am not down with trophy hunting/fishing. I try to eat all of what I kill.
They were shooting at carp, tilapia (yum) and alligator gar. I fumbled two shots and hit a 6+ alligator gar in the head and on the third try. Mark yelled at me for shooting it in the head, as it is bony and the arrows can pull out.
I'm on the left, struggling to hold it up. Mark told me my trip was over and I wouldn't ever do any better that my 6' fish.
Mark dressed my gar for me as I bummed some beer from the gentleman from Fredricksberg.
We had a great dinner, and we were leaving the restaurant in mark's truck when he pulled in front of a tractor trailer while talking on his cell phone. It was uncool, way to close.
Mark made it to our hotel, pulled into the parking lot and sideswiped a parked pickup with his boat/trailer. He broke the turn signals of the truck he hit and bent the shit of his own trailer.
The next day was uneventful, warm with not many fish caught. We were looking forward to the night fishing action.
After dark we saw schools of tilapia but they are real fast and hard to hit. The gars were breeding and laying about in the shallow weeds. Fish change color depending on their moods, and the gars were very moody, with some dark almost black and many silvery. We weren't wanting to bag anything smaller that we had bagged before.
I saw a lot of fish, and a few alligators but didn't shoot at any. At around 2400 we were going up a creekbed that had a lot of dead trees.Iit was about 8-10' deep and I saw a good sized gar and shot it with my bow.
Ah, it's not that big I said. Mark came unglued, he ran around, securing my line while yelling at my buddy to get ready to shoot it again."not now not now" as my buddy missed a shot. "You stupid Motherfucker" Mark yelled." I said not now "! shoot it shoot it ! now now" as my friend hits it in the head and mark cursed, "FUCK, NOT IN THE HEAD"!
The gar wrapped the line up in submerged trees and it took us around an hour to get it into the boat.
Some of Marks friend were bowfishing some distance away from us and he was keen to show off my fish. As he motored towards the other guys boat he failed to reduce his speed enough and hit their boat, breaking numerous lights on the other craft.
Here's the other view of my 7'4" 165lb, water body record alligator gar .
Look it up, I beat my guide Mark's previous record.
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fi ... _code=0164
Cheers Stiv....
What are you? Some short sighted trigger puller? - RR3 .
Mr.wRong.