Night time snake head fishing with bow from small boat

[mauser58]

I have a smaller 16' Lowes John Boat that I use for fishing and crabbing. I go snakehead fishing daytime but never at night. I talked to a few guys that use LED lights and say that the Snakes stay on top of water at night and not cautious like other fish. I want to use crossbow with fishing arrow. Also is it legal to spear or gig them at night from a boat? I am looking for area also off of Patapsco as I am back in Bear Creek and plenty of coves and grass cover now. Any pointers or info appreciated. Randy

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

Sounds fun, post pics of your boat setup please.

 

[mauser58]

Sounds fun, post pics of your boat setup please.

My boat is not set up yet for night time snake head. That is one reason I was asking for ideas and opinions. I just have portable LED running lights. I have seen some expensive set ups though at Bass Pro. Some have huge square lights out front and sides with a fishing platform.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

My boat is not set up yet for night time snake head. That is one reason I was asking for ideas and opinions. I just have portable LED running lights. I have seen some expensive set ups though at Bass Pro. Some have huge square lights out front and sides with a fishing platform.

My thoughts on lights and night come from times I try to work on cars or houses etc at night. BUGS.

Whenever you light up the night, out come the bugs. Unless this is a good thing for snakeheads to be enticed to feed on.

 

[Inigoes]

You will have a lot of fun bowfishing at night

 

[John from MD]

I have a smaller 16' Lowes John Boat that I use for fishing and crabbing. I go snakehead fishing daytime but never at night. I talked to a few guys that use LED lights and say that the Snakes stay on top of water at night and not cautious like other fish. I want to use crossbow with fishing arrow. Also is it legal to spear or gig them at night from a boat? I am looking for area also off of Patapsco as I am back in Bear Creek and plenty of coves and grass cover now. Any pointers or info appreciated. Randy

You have to have a fishing license and you can't transport live fish. No other limitations that I can recall. Here is a video of night snakeheading near Cambridge.

 

[willtill]

You have to have a fishing license and you can't transport live fish. No other limitations that I can recall. Here is a video of night snakeheading near Cambridge.

That was a really cool video.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

You have to have a fishing license and you can't transport live fish. No other limitations that I can recall. Here is a video of night snakeheading near Cambridge.

Wow

 

[Tomcat]

The ones I’ve seen down here in St.Mary’s are running small generators for the lights. See them quite often in our cove which is off the Patuxent

 

[slsc98]

Long as you manage the face flies you’re gonna have a blast!

Local boys down here take night fishing to point it makes more sense to call it light fishing - only for carp.

Some of them mount what have to be airport runway lights on 4x8 sheets of plywood on front and sides of the boats … some Friday nights the shoreline looks the main strip through Vegas …

At one point the state of NC ran a statewide carp harvesting by bow program on Friday nights and it was nothing to see a thousand fish lined up across some of the ramps well, WELL before sunup … not sure but I think our current (DemonRat) Gov did away with that …

 

[Wsanner]

First thing is to check and make sure you can bowfish that area. Md has certain areas now (mainly on the eastern shore/upper bay) that cannot be bowfished. Fish a falling tide. It brings the fish out of the cover. I would not say that snakehead hang out on top of the water. They prefer a muddy bottom, therefor you can normally only see them in the shallows due to how clear the water is. Led lights will work fine and you can run them right off of a 12v battery, but you will be limited on the time you can fish. A lot of us run 400w hps lights and run our trolling motors off of the generators. This way we can run all nite. I would recommend using a trolling motor instead of a gas motor. Since you are in shallow water, the mud is hard on the water pumps and if you miss a fish, there is no turning around to try again if you are creating a lot of mud, You can use a crossbow, however.... most crossbows have such a high draw weight that you will blow thru every fish and will be completely worn out from cocking it all night long. Most bowfishing bows have roughly a 25-35 lb draw. You can gig them, but to me, that takes the fun out of it. There are some guidelines on the size of the gig you are supposed to use, however it seems nobody follows them and Ive only heard of 1 person getting a ticket on the potomac for using the wrong gig. If you wanna try it out first and see how we do it, we run snakehead/numbers charters out of southern md. Loose Knot charters on FB. Any questions you have, please feel free to message me. good luck!

 

[Tomcat]

First thing is to check and make sure you can bowfish that area. Md has certain areas now (mainly on the eastern shore/upper bay) that cannot be bowfished. Fish a falling tide. It brings the fish out of the cover. I would not say that snakehead hang out on top of the water. They prefer a muddy bottom, therefor you can normally only see them in the shallows due to how clear the water is. Led lights will work fine and you can run them right off of a 12v battery, but you will be limited on the time you can fish. A lot of us run 400w hps lights and run our trolling motors off of the generators. This way we can run all nite. I would recommend using a trolling motor instead of a gas motor. Since you are in shallow water, the mud is hard on the water pumps and if you miss a fish, there is no turning around to try again if you are creating a lot of mud, You can use a crossbow, however.... most crossbows have such a high draw weight that you will blow thru every fish and will be completely worn out from cocking it all night long. Most bowfishing bows have roughly a 25-35 lb draw. You can gig them, but to me, that takes the fun out of it. There are some guidelines on the size of the gig you are supposed to use, however it seems nobody follows them and Ive only heard of 1 person getting a ticket on the potomac for using the wrong gig. If you wanna try it out first and see how we do it, we run snakehead/numbers charters out of southern md. Loose Knot charters on FB. Any questions you have, please feel free to message me. good luck!

Do any near Forest Landing?

 

[gwchem]

First thing is to check and make sure you can bowfish that area. Md has certain areas now (mainly on the eastern shore/upper bay) that cannot be bowfished. Fish a falling tide. It brings the fish out of the cover. I would not say that snakehead hang out on top of the water. They prefer a muddy bottom, therefor you can normally only see them in the shallows due to how clear the water is. Led lights will work fine and you can run them right off of a 12v battery, but you will be limited on the time you can fish. A lot of us run 400w hps lights and run our trolling motors off of the generators. This way we can run all nite. I would recommend using a trolling motor instead of a gas motor. Since you are in shallow water, the mud is hard on the water pumps and if you miss a fish, there is no turning around to try again if you are creating a lot of mud, You can use a crossbow, however.... most crossbows have such a high draw weight that you will blow thru every fish and will be completely worn out from cocking it all night long. Most bowfishing bows have roughly a 25-35 lb draw. You can gig them, but to me, that takes the fun out of it. There are some guidelines on the size of the gig you are supposed to use, however it seems nobody follows them and Ive only heard of 1 person getting a ticket on the potomac for using the wrong gig. If you wanna try it out first and see how we do it, we run snakehead/numbers charters out of southern md. Loose Knot charters on FB. Any questions you have, please feel free to message me. good luck!

How many guys can you take out for a night? My neighbor and I would be interested. I do a lot of archery hunting, but he doesn't, would you lend us bows?

 

[Wsanner]

Do any near Forest Landing?

I have, there are just too many houses around for me. Tends to cause too many issues and I can completely understand why.

 

[Wsanner]

How many guys can you take out for a night? My neighbor and I would be interested. I do a lot of archery hunting, but he doesn't, would you lend us bows?

We can do 4 shooters. We have everything you need. Bring what you want to eat/drink and shoot fish.

 

[5cary]

This is all second hand info, but I was at Lowes in Ellicot City looking for generators. I ended up talking to one of the managers that mentioned he uses an EGO Nexus battery pack to power his snakehead bowfishing rig. He lives on the water and goes out pretty much every night. Apparently there are a few bounty programs in MD, including some prize for an aggregate catch over the course of the year (I can't find anything on that). The pics he showed me from his phone were astounding. According to him, at night you can see masses of hundreds of hatchlings near the surface protected by large females. The females are what he goes after. They sit on the surface and the light doesn't spook them. He showed me a pic of a single night haul - a dozen huge fish all within a couple of hours.

I talked to my teenage boys and this is something we definitely want to try out.

 

[teratos]

A freezer full of snakehead should help offset the cost of food.

 

[Wsanner]

111 has been my best night. That's 2 of us shooting..... This pic was missing the 10 or so I gave away at the ramp

 

[Applehd]

Holy Jebus...!!!

 

[teratos]

111 has been my best night. That's 2 of us shooting..... This pic was missing the 10 or so I gave away at the ramp

That’s awesome!