Alright. Now I gotta try it. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find. Have a very murky shallow backwater off the river that we bowfish quite often. It’s nothing to see 40 beavers in one night of bowfishing. It’s also got more big banded water snakes than any place I’ve ever seen. Hundreds. And that’s not an exaggeration. Every over hang, every stump has at least one on it. And one night....
A friend of mine and I were bowfishing this backwater. We’d shot probably 30 commons, a few mirrors, some pretty big buffalo, and one 52lb grass carp. The beaver were everywhere just like always. We came around a bend and there was a huge beaver sitting on a point. Couldn’t care less that we were bringing sunlight (14, 500w Halogens) to the dark in his home. But he wasn’t impressed with the generator so he slipped into the water as we went past. About 20 seconds later I spot what I think is a monster buff just in view of the light. I draw, fire, and...it takes off. Smoked it. It takes off and I start fighting it. I’m losing. And then it comes to the surface. And it wasn’t a buff. It was that damn beaver.
So this beaver is dragging our boat. Literally. It was just a 16 mod-v Sea-Ark but we have a new 84lb thrust Motor-Guide trolling motor on it. And it is dragging the boat backwards against that trolling motor on full power and it’s headed towards the bank. I’ve got too much line out and our lights aren’t facing the right direction to even see it because it’s dragging the boat backwards.
It makes it to the bank and crawls into this underbrush “tunnel”. Probably 4’ in diameter. Still has my arrow and I want it back. I know I should have just cut my losses (literally) and tied on another arrow. But I was down to only two and honestly wanted to end the beavers suffering. The line is still tight but it’s still taking line. And let me tell you something. Beaver can pull in water. But when they make it to land....don’t wrap the line around your hand to keep it from going farther. You’ll lose. I can see where it’s gone. So we’ve pulled the boat to the bank. Actually the beaver did that for us. I hand the bow to Cory and tell him to keep the line tight. I’m going in the brush after it. I’ve got a crappy flashlight and my 45. But I figure if the line stays tight, I can follow it in taught against my body. If the line goes slack I know the beaver has turned around and is coming back at me. Pretty smart I thought.
So I get about maybe 15-20’ into this “brush tunnel” and all is well. I have no idea how much line the beaver has taken but it pulled quite a bit off the reel. Did I mention my flashlight sucks? It’s only good for about 10 feet. Well the bowfishing gods must have been mad at me for shooting a beaver by mistake. Or they wanted to play a very funny (in hindsight) joke on me. Because the line suddenly went completely slack. I panicked and in my panic I guess I hit the power button on the light. So now it’s dark, I’m in a snake infested area, and I’m 100% positive I have a very pissed off beaver coming back at me to seek his revenge. All I have is a light at the end of the tunnel from the boat. And I very badly wanted to get back to it. I’m not sure if I crawled or stood and ran through the brush back to it. But I did. It seemed like a 100 yards but I’m sure was no more than 30-40’. And when I get back, there is Corey, the man tasked with only one job, to hold the line tight. And he’s standing on the side of the boat taking a leak not paying attention.
I was pretty sure I’d already done that when the line went slack and the light went out. I was livid. I cussed him as only a good friend could get away with. And he apologized as only a friend that truly didn’t mean any harm could. I walked over and set on the side of the boat for a minute to collect myself. And the humor of the situation came over both of us.
Once that had subsided I crawled back out of the boat and followed the line a few feet into the brush and cut it. I’d had enough for one night.