Bowfishing On The Cuda HD

Earlier this season while kayaking a local backwater area, I noticed hundreds of carp feeding on the surface. The northern pike were nowhere to be found so i decided to switch gears. I had to blow the dust of my bow and head back to the backwater. Bowfishing is a great way to get out and practice archery during the hunting off-season. Here in Iowa carp are non-native and extremely overpopulated. These trapped fish make it harder for native fish to breed and feed. Carp and other rough fish make up more than 80% of our rivers biomass. Carp are omnivorous and can eat whatever the environment has to offer so its not hard for them to take nutrients away from the native species. All the fish I shot were repurposed as fertilizer at my private deer food plots.

The Cuda HD was a perfect kayak for getting into the hard to reach shallow areas where the carp were schooling. It stealthily got me right into the schools where I could target the bigger fish. Once I spotted carp, I would paddle as silent as possible to them, stand up and take aim. These bighead carp or common carp were either sucking scum off the surface or tailing above water while they sucked whatever food they could find. Any noise on the kayak would send the carp swimming so I had to be as stealthy as possible to find the fish. Once hit carp were reeled back to the kayak, I kept them on a stringer drug about 10’ behind the kayak. Standing on the Cuda HD to shoot the bow was no problem whatsoever. The HD is an incredibly stable kayak even when reeling in big fish.