This evening I took my nephew, Trent, on his first bowfishing excursion. My brother, Andy, accompanied.

Trent, a high school student at Woodway H.S. in Austin, with his first fish taken on archery equipment — a longnose gar

Trent got the compound bow he used tonight as a Christmas gift and has done well at target shooting since that time.

We’d looked at forecast after forecast since early April trying to get out on the water, but calm nights have been hard to come by.

No sooner did we get on the water this evening than the wind ramped up and stay up for most of our trip, thus greatly increasing the difficulty in spotting fish, making the water turbid, and preventing us from getting on key areas for this time of year.

We took a “lemons to lemonade” approach to things and persisted, however, and it paid off.

About an hour into our fishing efforts following some practice shooting at a submerged jug, we came upon a lone gar cruising parallel to the shore. I got as close as I felt we could without spooking the fish and gave Trent the go-ahead to shoot.

He released the fiberglass arrow and either hit or spooked the fish, resulting in it bolting out of the water and up onto the bank about a foot from the water’s edge. Trent quickly got reloaded as the gar squirmed back to the water. The gar continued swimming along the shore at a faster pace now and we caught back up with it. Trent shot again and this time hit the gar at its mid-point and managed to keep it on and boat it. Our first (and only!!) fish of the night and the first fish Trent had ever taken by bow was now in the livewell.

We pressed on for 2+ more hours hoping against hope that the winds would go slack, but that was not to be. Trent got a few more shots at other gar, drum, and buffalo, but we just didn’t connect on those opportunities.

Trent “paid his dues” tonight. When conditions are right sometime in the future, he’ll appreciate them that much more having toughed it out tonight in less than ideal circumstances.