About Us

Introducing the patented Harsh Lock Arrow, by Harsh Innovations LLC, five years in the making with the hours of developing, designing, and testing, ranging well into the thousands.

 

I have been an avid bowfisher for 17 years. Designing, improving, making things, and chasing after carp and rough fish is in my DNA. My father has a hand forge-welded fish spear hanging on my wall that belonged to my great-grandfather  from the late 1800s. My grandpa was an old Amish blacksmith and dad grew up helping grandpa in his shop and became a welder, jack of all trades, and entrepreneur. I followed in his footsteps.

 

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 flame that grandpa made with some pipe, some old tin as a reflector, and an old Model T Ford axle hub with little slots hack sawn into it as the preheater/burner. Dad says its 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 that ended in them eventually calling the fire department every time they went out spearing to forewarn them.

 

Dad has stories of  when he was a boy, him and his brothers would be up in the early 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 stuffed in the back of the station wagon as far as they could with gunny sacks full of fish in the back of the boat. They would clean smoke, and can the carp and suckers they speared on the St. Joe, and the Elkhart rivers, the very stretches of river they would spearfish are still our favorite spots.

 

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 use for fish Coho, to his old wooden riserd Browning compound bow that he used to put a bunch of venison on the table. When the carp ran up the creeks 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. 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 attached an old coffee can to the front of an old 45 lb Bear recurve we had layin around 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 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, bent barbs and tips wearing 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 spotted 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 have a design with some high tech materials and a production process that has 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 has yet to release a fish accidentally over the past 3 years of shooting, with dozens of arrows being shot by various people in various conditions around the country. 

 

As a company we strive for all American made products, give customers a value for their dollar and we wish to do so with integrity or not at all. I am proud to say each and every customer that has bought an arrow has been delighted  with the performance  and most have come back and purchased multiples to make sure they never have to shoot a different type of arrow.

I wish y'all many good times shooting with good friends. 

Happy shooting!                                                          

David Harshberger