About 6 years ago I went to a friend's 7 acre lake. I took a Zebco 808 and mounted it on a special stabilizer (made for mounting reels). Bought some fiberglass arrows and went fishing. The bow I used was a 1986 model Martin Warthog, wood laminated compound.
I put some black braided 25 pound line on and was standing in a jon boat guiding a trolling motor with my knee. I saw a big grass carp's dorsal fin sticking out of the water by shore. I drew back and let it fly, the water erupted everywhere, the fish took off splashing, flipping and snap! My line broke. There must have been 12 fish all around the one I shot at and didn't see them. That's why the water in a 40 foot circle exploded when I shot! I shot a few more times. Once I forgot to push the cast button on the 808, it sounded like a rifle going off. The arrow took off like there was no line attached. That scared me! I went home more excited than before I started.
The next weekend I went back only this time I had some 84 lb. white braided line and more arrows. With this line I made damn sure I pushed the reel button! I shot one in first try again. Same thing the water exploded but this time the fish actually tugged me around in the boat. I suppose I went 75 yards before I tired him and pulled him into the boat. Then he started flipping around, you want to see danger, stay clear of a 20 pound grass carp jumping around with a pointed arrow sticking out of him. Filleted it out and after dipping it in fish crumbs fried it in oil. Tasted just like you think it would, algae! But the meat pieces were big and didn't have all the tiny bones a regular carp has.
After a few more trips I concluded the proper arrow setup is a solid fiberglass with those Muzzy wire cable kits. And painted the ends of all arrows bright orange.
The actually fishing is easy, I just slowly trolled around the lake's edge. The grass carp were next to shore sucking on grasses, sometimes with their whole head out of the water. You get one good shot and the fish in that area scatter. Then you troll further and see another group. It would take me about 90 minutes to troll this lake. Then I was done for a few hours waiting for the fish to come back. I shot three that summer that I recovered, the broken line one surfaced a week later, no arrow in it. They were all 23-27 inches and I guess about 20 pounds, nice hogs.
Someone suggested chumming them with old cherry tomatoes or kernal corn, too help get them back sooner. But I haven't been out since.
I have an online video of me releasing an arrow and missing one, it looks like I hit but I missed. You can see the water exploding, pretty cool. The AVI file is 10mb and I only uploaded it once, took about 1 hour!
It is alot of fun. I have never gone out into backwaters for gar or river carp. I always shot fish on surface so I didn't have to worry about the sunlight refraction angle. Not sure if I know what it is, but if fish is 24 inches under water you aim lower than it appears or something.