The sun was setting on the waters of Lake Chotard in Issaquena County and the bass fishermen were arriving at the launch after a long day on the water.

However, the night for the bowfishermen was just beginning.

If you go

River City Classic

Saturday, 7 p.m.

At Lake Chotard

Weigh-in is 7 a.m. Sunday

Bowfishing is a sport that few nationally have heard of, but it’s taking off, especially on area waters like Chotard and Eagle Lake.

It’s a combination of sight fishing and bowhunting that is everything conventional fishing is not. It’s action-packed and requires keen reflexes and steady aim. It’s not casting some bait into the depths and waiting for something to happen.

Fishermen spot the fish swimming just beneath the surface and fire an arrow connected with fishing line to a spinning reel. The arrow, when true, impales the fish with a pair of spring-loaded barbs alongside the arrowhead, allowing the fisherman to reel in his catch.

Their quarry is the dregs of the underwater world — gar, big and small, and various species of carp.

Bert Turcotte, owner of the airboat Bad Moon II, launched his mammoth airboat and its massive big block motor thrummed to life, driving the massive propeller and leaving a giant rooster tail in its wake.

The night cloaked the launch in darkness, the massive hallide lights on the bow of the airboat providing the only penetration of the oncoming darkness. A generator hums in the hull to power the massive lights designed to light up parking lots or football stadiums. Turcotte checks the GPS and the boat hits the extinct river channel at full speed, a cloud of bugs turning into hyperspace-like stars. Friends Jeffrey Coon, Robert Belk and son Taylor Belk ride shotgun on this expedition.

For Belk, who fights fires for the Vicksburg Fire Department and also doubles as the Mississippi Bowfishing Association’s president, the trips with his friends are the culmination of years stalking fish with a bow.

While Turcotte owns the boat, the three pool their money for fuel and repairs.

“When I was young, we’d shoot in the flooded fields just for fun,” Belk said. “We got serious about four or five years ago.”

Back on the water, even with the boat in transition between fishing spots, there is action on the lake.

Silver carp, drawn by the lights of the boat, jump out of the water — some into the boat. The fish can weigh as much as 10 pounds, making water skiing in any lake they inhabit a dangerous undertaking. Later in the evening, a carp finds its way into the space below the engine, making for a difficult retrieval.

Soon, the Bad Moon II with Turcotte at the helm arrives in one of the labyrinthine bayous and channels that connect Chotard with Albemarle Lake. It’s fishing time.

The airboat scoots over the dead limbs of a flooded forest like a tank. The water is measured in inches, not feet here.

The gar are stealthy, hard to spot until the lights illuminate them. There are the shortnose gar and spotted gar that lie in wait for their prey. The flooded forest is alive. Alligators pop up and disappear into the shadowy depths. Night herons and great blue herons buzz the boat as a colony of white egrets squawk their dismay at the boat’s presence.

“The trick is to aim beneath the fish,” Coon said as he readied his bow. The bows are not the high-powered kind preferred by deer hunters. Even with a light draw, an arrow buried in the primordial soup is not easy to retrieve.

The fishing is fast and furious, with gar after gar impaled. On this night, the group is scouting locations for Saturday’s River City Classic, a big numbers tournament put on by the Mississippi Bowfishing Club.

The bucket quickly fills up, as gar fall to the arrows and are quickly retrieved.

“If we were fishing a tournament, we’d fill up two of these baskets and a bigger one,” Turcotte said.

After fishing a few spots and on the way to a new one, Turcotte and Conn spot bigger quarry. A large silver gar lurks near the surface.

The first arrow penetrates the three-foot gar’s flesh and it thrashes away. Another finds its mark and the three haul the monster into the boat. Conn is careful to grip the gar’s massive jaws shut with gloved hands, because it possesses a big mouth of jagged, sharp teeth.

The fish was the biggest prize of the night.

The fishermen continue into the channels that connect the oxbow lakes and where the gar and carp hide. Other boats, easy to see with their gunwales festooned with lights, make up the rest of this nocturnal fraternity.

It’s not a hobby for the budget-minded. A top-of-the line fishing bow can cost around $600. An airboat to get to the shallow reaches where the gar and carp hide costs up to $45,000 fully equipped. The arrows themselves are $12 or so.

Turcotte advises those starting out to buy a used hunting bow, especially one with a lighter draw. It allows them to get a feel for the hobby, and most spinning reels are easily attached to any bow.

But, he warns, once they get the feel for it, they will get hooked.

“I’ve bowhunted, duck hunted and even took up golf,” Turcotte said. “But nothing compares to this. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

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Contact Steve Wilson at swilson@vicksburgpost.com