PANACEA -- Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, the stingray
froze when illuminated by the three 500-watt halogen lamps on the bow of captain Vic Davis' skiff. ''It's plenty clear,'' Davis told Glenn Dowling. ``Just blast him!''
Dowling drew back his compound bow and fired a spear-tipped
arrow at the ray in the foot-deep water. It nailed the ray dead-center, and Dowling used an attached line to pull it into
the boat. ''Sweet!'' Davis congratulated him.
Dowling's wife, Kristina, and Davis' girlfriend, Patty
Young, gave Davis a wide berth as he flung the impaled stingray, tail still lashing, into a barrel in the stern of the boat.
The captain said he would donate the night's proceeds of ray and gar to his commercial crabbing friends for trap bait. But
if the party were lucky enough to spear any sheepshead, those tasty black-barred fish would end up in the frying pan.
WEAPON OF CHOICE
Davis, 37, is one of perhaps a handful of Florida saltwater
fishing guides who specialize in bowfishing charters -- escorting customers who want to hunt and shoot fish with bow and arrow.
He said he keeps very busy with clients from Georgia, Louisiana and other states where the sport is popular in freshwater
for catfish, carp, gar and tilapia. Out-of-towners, such as the Dowlings, enjoy the variety of species they can hunt on Florida's
saltwater flats and creeks.
Davis' boat is rigged especially for nighttime bowfishing
in shallow water. The 23-foot Explorer, custom built in Texas, has a tunnel hull that enables it to float in two inches of
water. It has an elevated pilot station and low gunwales for ease of spotting and shooting. A 3.5-horsepower generator keeps
the bow-mounted lights going all night long.
Bowfishing weapons are pretty simple -- a compound or
recurve bow (the compound has a cam for ease of drawback, the recurve does not), solid fiberglass arrows with stainless-steel
spear tips and a reel or drum spool to store fishing line for retrieving the quarry.
According to Davis, bowfishing is a lot harder
than terrestrial bowhunting -- which is hard enough. ''I get these
guys who say they're bowhunters. They get out here for a couple of hours and they can't find their [butt] with both hands,''
he said.
The challenge is that the refraction of light through
the water distorts the shape of the fish, requiring the hunter to compensate when aiming. Or as Davis puts it: ``When you
aim and you think you got his [butt], aim lower.''
He said it's pretty tough to shoot anything in water
deeper than four feet, but he once killed a 52-pound carp with a bow at that depth in Ochlocknee Bay.
Davis and his customer, Dowling, vice president of the
Georgia Wildlife Federation, have been bowfishing since they were children. Practiced by American Indians since prehistoric
times, the sport is now a staple of outdoors television shows.
The 600-member Bowfishing Association of America (http://www.bowfishingassociation.com/) will hold a World Bowfishing Championship on July 15 on Missouri's Truman Reservoir. The organization keeps world records
and is a clearinghouse for information.
A DELICACY
Ed Devries, a spokesman for the national group and president
of the Bowfishing Association of Illinois, was surprised that Davis and his customers didn't want to eat the stingrays they
shot.
''They're delicious!'' Devries said, and listed his
recipes: ``I make stingray jerky. I sauté the wing meat with butter. It has a lobster-like texture to it. And I marinate stingray
in pineapple juice and barbecue it.''.....
Florida regulates which fresh and saltwater fish may
be shot with bow and arrow. Generally, gamefish -- such as snook, bass, redfish and shark -- are off-limits to bowfishing
and spearing.
Davis' customers favor sheepshead and flounder, but
on the night the Dowlings bowfished, the wind was blowing so hard out of the west on a low tide that even the shallow-draft
Explorer couldn't stay on the flats for long. Still, the Dowlings managed to harvest four stingrays between them.
Then the captain diverted to nearby Spring Creek, where
his customers got several shots at long-nosed gar. Glenn Dowling got one, which went into the crab bait barrel.
Davis says bowfishing has one huge advantage over hook-and-line:
You don't have to wait for the fish to bite.
