 Little did I know, this trip was going to be the bowfishing trip of a lifetime. Never did I imagine having such a complete and enjoyable trip. It was late August, and we were headed for the bayous of southern Louisiana in pursuit of any edible finned quarry that we could find. Redfish, drum, flounder, sheepshead, gar, alligator gar, stingray, and shark were on the menu.
A short, two hour drive south of New Orleans, brought us to Golden Meadow, Louisiana, where we hooked up with Captain Darel Bryan of Marsh Masters Guide Service. We were there for 3 full days and nights of Louisiana bowfishing at its finest. My husband, Jeff and I were fishing with Ray Howell, his grandson, Tyler and another group of Ray’s acquaintances from Texas. The instant we met Captain Darel, his father, Captain Bob, and Captain Tate, we knew we were in for a good time. We couldn’t have found more fun, down-to-earth, people to bowfish with.
Darel had two of the cleanest airboats, completely outfitted for night bowfishing, that I’ve ever seen, docked, ready and waiting for us to hop in and head for the Bayou’s. We didn’t waste anytime getting on the water. We were more than ready to do some serious bowfishing.
 I was up on the bow of the boat, practice shooting as Darel idled us along. He was making some smart comment about wanting to see if I could hit anything. I proceeded to split an 8"x ½" twig in half while he watched with my 5/16" arrow. I remember him laughing and then saying "OK, I’ll shut up! I’m impressed." Luck, that’s what it was, because after that shot, the next hour was awful.
I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Finally, after missing dozens and dozens of fish, I became acclimated to Darel’s boat and was on. Finally. Sheepshead were my specialty at first, as they had the target area of a paper plate, then redfish, and flounder. According to Ray, I was "unconscious" and nailing nearly everything that came into view. One fish after another was hauled in the boat.
Tyler, age 10, was ecstatic! He had shot his first fish ever, after only a few missed shots, and was he ever excited. "Wow! Grandpa, I got him! Ahhh, there one goes!" he’d yell as he was trying to remove his fish from the arrow. What a night! The cooler was full of great tasting Louisiana fish; I was filthy, wide-eyed, and ready for more. We finally decided it was time to quit after the cooler was nearly overflowing with fish and our limits had been reached. What an unbelievable, first night of the finest bowfishing I’ve had in a long time.
 The following day, we were in pursuit of shark. I had invited Linette, a friend I met when I had been on a Woman’s whitetail hunt the previous fall, to come along for the adventure. She is a Louisiana native and fit right in with our crew. I borrowed her some of my extra equipment, showed her how to operate her Retriever reel, and gave her some quick pointers. An avid archer, she was ready for her first bowfishing outing within minutes.
We headed for International waters, about 15 miles from the mainland. Oilrigs were everywhere and what huge, impressive structures they were. Darel was confident that we would be able to find some shark, and nice ones at that. We cruised along the sandbars and along the rocky shorelines created by the dredges making channels for the tankers to come into port. We found some smaller shark, around three feet in length, but nothing that we wanted to shoot. Then about a 6’ shark was within range. Jeff and I fired simultaneously. No good. The shark was gone instantly. Nerves, I guess.
We cruised along for a while longer, and repeated our troll along the sandbar when Linette saw the unimaginable. "There’s one!" she shouted. The dorsal fin of a huge shark was completely out of the water. It was in about 2’ of water and was swimming along the shoreline, feeding on baitfish, about 100 yards from us. We headed toward it as it continued to swim along shore, but gradually headed in front of us toward deeper water.
Jeff and I both waited for it to get within range. I knew it had to come closer for me to do more than poke this huge fish. I hesitated a split-second longer than Jeff did. When it got within his range, he fired. Upon hearing his shot, I released, knowing that it was too late, and too far for my bow. His arrow struck home and my arrow hit where the shark had been. The reaction of the shark was astonishing. Upon impact, it took off like a bullet, hauling every last yard of 400# line from Jeff’s Slotted AMS Retriever in literally seconds. His bright yellow, 12" deep-sea float was pulled around like a small fishing bobber.
For nearly an hour we followed the float, pulled it up, let it run, followed the float, pulled it up and let it run, again and again. We were sure to pull on the line hand over hand, and left the slack line and float in the water as we worked our way toward the shark and the arrow. With the obvious power of this fish, we needed to be extremely careful of looping the line etc. to avoid entanglement with fingers if and when it chose to run again. We were trying to work the shark up within range of the boats, so we could secure it with another arrow. All we had done so far was make him mad. Very mad.
Finally, we could see it; a huge gray shadow appeared between the two boats. Arrows flew and another struck the giant fish. We celebrated. We had accomplished another great feat in the process of bringing this shark home. The fish was growing tired, and now had two arrows imbedded in his hide. We worked it up again, with more confidence gained by the second arrow in the hide, and fired again with the broad head. It was over. The shark gave up the fight. Everyone cheered and congratulated Jeff on a great fish.
Then we all looked at each other. Now what? Now, how are we going to get this 300# beast, into our 24" fiberglass boat? And, was he really dead? We waited a good bit of time for him to completely expire before it was decided that they would try to haul him in. It took six grown men, and a huge gaff hook to grab onto and pull this awesome fish over the side rail of the Marsh Masters Deep-Sea Rig. They had done it. We had boated the fish.
 We all have seen the movie Jaws or similar shark stories, but nothing, I mean nothing, is like being there and being part of a 300# shark being taken with bow and arrow. It was absolutely incredible. The shark’s sandpaper-like hide glistened in the rays of the sun. It was a beautiful dark grey with a pure white belly, and was much tougher than I had imagined. Unbelievably, Jeff’s first shot, would have been all that we needed to hold the fish. His Muzzy bowfishing point had penetrated deep into the hide of the fish, and refused release its hold on this fish, until finally, it had to be cut out. Its teeth, three rows of them, were daunting. Incredible memories let me tell you, all within 24 hours of arrival. I don’t know how this trip could get any better.
 Since our first night and following day were so successful, we all decided to stay back and rest the next night, and let Darel take two more boatloads of clients out for some more fishing. It didn’t take long and I was sound asleep.
The next day, Captain Bob, had other things planned. He thought we should all get a taste of deep-sea fishing, with hopes that he could chum up a Barracuda, Mackerel, Grouper and other deep-sea fish for us to shoot at. The seas turned out to be rough; much too rough to reasonably stand on the bow of the boat with our bows. We succumbed, put the bows down, and picked up the fishing rods. Well, the rest of them did anyway.
I am known to get seasick in larger boats, I was hoping this trip would be different, and even took some proven seasickness medicine before we left. I was wrong. Shortly after Captain Bob killed the motor, I was laying underneath his captain’s chair with my eyes closed, waiting and waiting for someone to call it quits. I’d only get up when I had heard that someone caught a fish to take a picture, and then would quickly retreat back down to my spot. Finally, after several hours, and after catching enough to feed all of us for supper, we headed back to the Marsh Masters dock. I was ready, believe me.
They cleaned the fish and Darel’s wife, Ava and Bob’s wife made another great meal with the catch of the day. Wonderful food and wonderful people. They were so accommodating. Our bellies were full, and our bodies were aching to head for bed, but we had another night of fishing planned.
It was a repeat of the first, except I was on right away and somehow, it wasn’t as messy. We had also gotten into some flounder. Flounder is a flat fish, speckled gray and black on one side and white on the other. Both eyes are on the gray side. It is a very unusual, but tasty fish. It camouflages itself very well. Darel was trying to point them out to us, but we couldn’t make them out, until finally, one rippled his fin.
We had found the flounder honey hole for the night and almost reached our limit before we headed on for more redfish and sheepshead. It was there that we witnessed something I’ll never forget. There in the shallows of the bayou was a mother dolphin (porpoise) and her newborn calf. Our lights startled her and they swam attempted to swim out to the depths for safety, but not before we had our eyes and minds full of their beauty. I was resting my arms at the time and was able to get a clip of them on film. It was beautiful.
The night continued, with another boatload of tasty fish, when we decided that we had better head in so we’d be able to function for another day of shark fishing. Now it was my turn and I could not wait.
This, the last day, my day, started out rather slow. We went to the same areas where we had seen shark two days before and there was nothing; nothing but stingray. I wanted to shoot one, but did not want to be messing with a stingray when my real quarry swam by. I was getting impatient searching for shark when finally a nice ray tempted me. It was over 24" in diameter, the largest we had seen for the day. I could not resist. I drew and s shot it. I thought the fight was on, but instead, it drew itself down into the sand. We had to work to pull it up and get it into the boat. It was my first stingray and a nice one at that.
 We forgot about the rays and continued the pursuit of the shark. Finally, we decided to head for the rock reef that we had seen a few sharks on when Jeff shot his. We found them, many of them. We held off on the smaller ones and the other larger ones tended to be too deep. It was a bit eerie. There they were, cruising through the clear, blue water feeding on the baitfish that found safety in the reef. And there we were, standing above them, looking down on them, our prey. Or, could we be their prey?
Brian and I were on the bow of the boat. We took several deep shots but continued to miss. The arrows completely lost their power well before reaching the shark. Finally one, about seven foot, came up and rolled right in front of the boat. We both missed, again. Unbelievable.
I was using my Mathews Sportsman bow with a 40# draw. It is a great bow for bowfishing, but was not quite enough to reach these depths. I was wishing I had brought my hunting bow. Then Darel yells, "There’s one! It’s a biggun’! Right there!" It was deep, straight down, and swimming beneath us. I knew I needed everything my bow had to reach that fish, I drew the bow with everything I had and released, instantly. A hit! It was mine! My heart was racing and the adrenaline pumped through my body. What a rush! The 25 yards of 400# line in my AMS Slotted Retriever Reel was gone in seconds and the big yellow float popped off the bow of the boat trailing the shark like a bobber on a kids fishing pole. I was trembling with excitement. The chase was one.
All we could do was follow the float for the first few minutes as it followed behind the shark and made its own wake from the shark’s strength and speed. Then, I saw them; pilings. The remnants of a structure from years past poked their miserable heads out of the ocean’s surface. About 10 of them, 12" in diameter, were directly in the path of my shark. If that were all there was, just the uprights, we would have had a chance, but I knew that there was more beneath the water that we couldn’t see. My heart sunk. There was nothing we could do to prevent the fish from swimming to them. It was too green and too big for us to have anything to do with persuading it to go the other way. Then the float disappeared. And then, nothing.
My heart sunk further. Then I saw the float, wedged about 4 feet below the surface between some of the lower structure of the pilings. I had little hope. We were able to reach the float with the gaff and dislodge it. The line was limp. There was nothing on the other end but my arrow. My arrow, however, was without a point. The point had been broken clean off. There was no splintering or shattering of the solid fiberglass arrow. It was as if it were a toothpick, snapped right off. There was no doubt that my Mathew’s Sportsman bow DID have enough power to penetrate the hide of that beast. My Muzzy point held strong. My 400# line and even my AMS Safety Slide and stop pad on my arrow held up. It was the arrow that was the weakest link.
To this day I question what we should have done, what we could’ve done differently. There are many what ifs, but no firm conclusions. We all agreed that we did everything the best we could. There was nothing else we could’ve done, that didn’t have its own consequences. So I have to admit. There is one huge shark out there, swimming around the Gulf of Mexico with a stainless steel thorn in his back with my name on it.
It was a disappointing end to the best bowfishing trip I’ve ever had. It was a trip of absolutely unbelievable, unsurpassed bowfishing, memorable events, and very disappointing ending. It will be in my mind forever. From the first night with a boatload of fish; the first day with Jeff connecting with his 300# shark and Linette being there to witness it. From being seasick out in the Gulf of Mexico and that evening when the Mother Dolphin and her calf honored us with their presence. Finally the last day searching for shark, finding a stingray, and finally connecting with a fish that could’ve given us the fight of a lifetime and losing it when the arrow snappped like a toothpick when it swam through the submerged pilings. Unbelievable memories have been made and long-time friends as well.
My shark is still out there and I will be going out again, to the rock reef where it all began.
For the best bowfishing you’ll ever find in the south, contact Darel Bryan at Marsh Masters Guide Service 800-111-1111 or contact me directly at cindy@amsbowfishing.com with any questions you may have about this unforgettable trip. I would be glad to answer any questions you may have.
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