About Us

    Here at Harsh Bowfishing Technologies we strive  to design , test , and manufacture  the best quality equipment we can develop to bring value and the best experience we can  for the men, women, and kids of the bowfishing world!

    As  an avid bowfisher since 1995 , I have  experienced the challenges that bowfishing tends to present when it comes to equipment design and the rigors of our great sport .

    Designing, improving, building  things, and chasing after rough fish is in my DNA. My family has a hand forge-welded fish spear hanging on the wall that belonged to my great-grandfather  from the late 1800s. My grandpa was an old Amish blacksmith and my dad grew up helping grandpa in his shop and became a welder, jack of all trades, and entrepreneur. 

    I recall waking up on weekends as a little kid with a lot of anticipation, excited to see all the big fish that my dad, grandpa and various friends had brought home from a night out spear fishing, wishing like heck I was old enough to join the fun. They would always come home with their faces black with soot from using a gravity flow gasoline light with a big orange open flame that grandpa made with some pipe, a hand valve, some old tin as a reflector, and an old Model T Ford axle hub stuffed with fiberglass insulation, little slots hack sawn into it with a plate bolted on top that acted as the preheater/burner. Dad always said  it’s still the best seeing light there is if there is no wind. There were some pretty funny stories of the fire department being called on them multiple times, leading them to eventually calling the fire department every time they went out spearing to forewarn them.

    Dad had stories of when he was a boy, him and his brothers would be up in the early morning hours starting to milk the cows, Grandpa Ezra and Grandpa's cousin Lewis come home with the headlights of Lewis' 67 Chevy station wagon shining in the trees, with grandpa's 16 foot flatbottom bluefin stuck into the back of the station wagon as far as they could. They had gunny sacks full of fish piled  in the boat. They would clean smoke, and can the carp and suckers. I found out much after the fact  in some conversations with dad  some 60 years later, the very spots they speared on the river  back then are still some of my  favorite spots today!

     I remember helping dad cut and plane long oak handles for some spearheads he welded up when I was a kid. I think I was in love with chasing carp before the first time I wielded a spear but was pretty limited to how much I could go out as a young kid, we didn't get to go out with dad very often and we relied on him taking us out with his boat.

     One summer dad came home from a garage sale with an old faded yellow fiberglass bowfishing arrow with a rusted steel stingree type head. He attached an old open faced reel ,he  used to fish Coho , to his old wooden riser Browning compound bow,  that he used to put a lot  of venison on the table. When the carp ran up the creek close to our house, he tried his hand at shooting some, much to our delight.  He sure didn't hit much and spent most of his time in waders in the muck bottom creek digging around for his arrow  when he forgot to trip the bail on the reel. He ended up just spearing fish with a pitchfork. He Stuck with what he knew, spearfishing. I was probably ten or so.

    Several years later I saw an article in the outdoor life and i went to work!  I attached an old coffee can to the front of an old 45 lb Bear recurve we had layin around and strung up for as long I could remember. I tied a chalk line to the bow and wrapped it around the coffee can and tied that old yellow arrow on . My brother bought himself the brand new AMS retriever and a muzzy arrow, but  I couldn't  afford one. We had a grand time and shot a many a fish over the years off the banks of creeks with friends. I eventually upgraded to a compound and AMS retriever, but later I went back to the same old Bear recurve. That old yellow arrow lasted me about 10 years. I had other arrows, but it was my favorite. I shot it til the head wore through and was forced upon a new arrow.

    I was really disappointed in the metallurgy of the new arrows I tried, the barbs bent to easy  and tips wore  out fast. The more we shot and the more involved we got with bowfishing  the more I became frustrated with arrow designs, the stringree type head occasionally releasing fish and all the other designs being tough to remove when you haven't entirely shot thru a fish, or tearing out of fish easily.  I had about a five and a half foot  gar take off and run out all my line, shoot up out of the water  about five feet, do a flip and release the head on a stingree type arrow. I said, "That is it!! There has got to be a better way to make an arrow."

    It took a year and a half before I would have a working prototype. The mechanism worked but the arrow performance left a lot to be desired. Three and a half years later we had a design with some high tech materials and a production process that worked incredibly well, better than I ever envisioned when I set out to make a better locking/ release mechanism. This arrow sports the fastest release on the market and a solid lock. We set out with the patent process and a business was  born .

   We have since added other arrows to the market  with our same release mechanism. We  do a lot of engineering and design with our  arrows, for great shootablity, toughness , unparalleled  hold on a quick release arrow and overall  ease of use. 

    In 2018   I followed in my grandpas footsteps and started  developing a better light . We developed some HPS lights with unparalleled in efficiency compared to other HPS lights . They had to be custom mounted on  boats and we started outfitting local boats .  We put a hold on that venture after a couple seasons  and have been spending time to develop these for off the shelf applications so anyone can mount them on their own boat , or custom applications.  We developed prototypes with great success on my own boat.  We are looking forward to a release soon !

  In the midst of the HPS light development - In 2021 we came out with a new AC powered troller , that runs straight off of a generator . Probably the most exciting product We’ve created .  We have had great success with great feedback from customers . Our trollers sport great  longevity   with a robust system and heavy duty brushless motors and a mud motor type weedless prop.   Check out the videos on our facebook page !

   As a company we strive for all American made products- as much as possible , give customers a value for their dollar and we wish to do so with integrity or not at all.  I wish y'all many good times shooting with good friends.

Happy shooting!                                                         

David Harshberger