Hastings Area Man Threatens to Shoot 3 While Bow Fishing

Three young adults were enjoying an evening of bow fishing on Thornapple Lake when a man on shore with what appeared to be an AR-style rifle threatened to shoot them.

What is Bow Fishing?

Bow fishing has been around for at least 15,000 years. It's exactly what it looks like in the picture above, an archer uses a bow and arrow to fish.

Although the boats and archery equipment have changed the principle is the same you shoot the fish with your bow and arrow that has a line attached to a fishing reel that is attached to the bow.

Read More: Should Michigan's Lake Sturgeon Be An Endangered Species?

I live by the Hardy Dam and see people doing this all year long. Most people who do this are thinning out junk fish like carp and garpike that eat up a lot of the game fish eggs and their food. So they are doing a good service to the body of water they are bow fishing on.  Could you imagine trying to do this when someone on shore has what appears to be an AR-style rifle with a laser scope threatening to shoot you if you don't get off the lake?

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Hastings Man Threatens to Shoot 3 While Bow Fishing

According to WOOD, a 21-year-old woman, and two men who were 19 and 20 years old were doing some bow fishing on Thornapple Lake, near Hastings, Michigan, when a man on shore with an AR-style rifle threatened to shoot them if they didn't stop. The woman called 911 and told them the man on shore was mad about the lights that were on the boat.

The group in the boat wound up turning the lights and motor off and hid in the hull of the boat. The man on shore with the gun got a light out and was trying to locate the group bow fishing as they quietly maneuvered their boat to shore to hide in the woods until sheriff deputies arrived.

No shots were fired but deputies did arrest 35-year-old Steven Whiteman a found him with an AR-style pellet gun instead of a rifle. Whiteman was in court Tuesday where he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and for resisting and assaulting a police officer. Whiteman is currently being held in the Barry County Jail.