Amazing Girl Uses PVC Pipe Compound BowFishing To Shoot Fish

This might be a bit iffy for Permies since she's heat forming PVC, if so I apologize. This was just so ingenious that I thought people might be interested in seeing it.

I'll bet there are a dozen types of wood in that forest, that could make a suitable bow. It would be interesting to know what others are using. I'm going to guess this is filmed in the Philippines. They have plenty of bamboo.

Doesn't seem to have a lot of power or accuracy. With the distance she is shooting, it seems a little over engineered with both the abundance of natural material around and that a basic curved pvc pipe and twine seems to put out much more power.

I made my kids some heat formed pvc recurve bows that punch through quarter in plywood. Might see if I can engineer something of a cross between a recurve and a compound bow out of all the irrigation pipe I pulled out of the lawn.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I'm going to guess this is filmed in the Philippines.

The description on the video says Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I'll bet there are a dozen types of wood in that forest, that could make a suitable bow. It would be interesting to know what others are using. I'm going to guess this is filmed in the Philippines. They have plenty of bamboo.

I read that Ash limbs,because of thier typically straight grain was the choice of native Americans on the eastern U.S.    Larry
Have

Yes, there are useful types of wood just about everywhere in the world. Yew was the choice here on the West Coast, Tamarac in much of the Boreal forest and many others. The forests of Cambodia have many more species than we do. This girl's ancestors used something, and it wasn't made in a chemical factory.

The video links to others that are making things from PVC pipe. There are fish traps. In that part of the world fish traps are made from bamboo. I watched a video where a pygmy from Southern Thailand made numerous tools from bamboo, quite quickly. He had a very serviceable toolkit, made mostly from available forest materials. He also had a really nice knife that looked like it might have been made from a leaf spring. So, even those living in the most natural way are making some use of products of modern industry. I just don't think that PVC hunting bows make much sense. The people who build longbows here, seek out top-quality wood.

Birds and monkeys have excellent vision. A hunter who shows up with a brightly colored plastic instrument,  is likely to be detected, and his prey will flee.

I mostly thought it was cool she figured out how to do it and created a functional bow for doing what she intended (bow fishing).

Some of the responses have brought up a question. Can one make a functional bow fishing bow from natural materials that could be collected and put together in a day or so that would work when wet?

Having asked that, I realize you can make a much better bow if you have time. The natural bows I know something about are either wood self bows like English long bows or composite bows of wood, horn and sinew like Mongolian horse bows. I'm presuming the same would be true for fishing bows. I also suspect that if time isn't available a fish trap or a fishing pole might be a better bet than a bow for catching fish, possibly even a spear for someone that already has that skill.

Dale had mentioned the knife made out of an old leaf spring.  I have heard this was a common material of choice to manufacture knives for both personal use and to sell to tourists in the South Pacific after WWII. There were abandoned vehicles readily available on the islands .  Leaf springs are pretty tough. I can't imaging how long it would take to make a decent knife with just hand tools.  My father brought back a semi decorative knife from Manila when he was stationed there, it hept it's edge well.  Larry