AMS Fish Hawk Review

Editors' review

Ask a bowfisher who came up in the late 2000s what first put them on the water, and a surprising number will name this bow. The AMS Fish Hawk was the company's original bowfishing compound and, by a wide margin, its longest-running one - a simple single-cam rig AMS cataloged from the mid-2000s through the mid-2010s and kept selling for a few years beyond, sitting a rung below the fancier dual-cam Fire Eagle as the affordable way into the sport. What made it matter was not a headline spec but a decision: one cam, no draw stop, and a build tough enough to survive a beginner's mistakes. That combination turned it into a family bow in the most literal sense, because AMS built the same Hawk platform in draw weights from a 6-pound child's Mini Hawk up to the 40-pound adult version. It is discontinued now and lives on the used market, but it still turns up in boats as somebody's backup or a kid's first rig, precisely because it was hard to wear out. For the first-time or budget bowfisher who wants a forgiving, no-fuss finger-shooter - or a household outfitting a young kid alongside an adult - the Fish Hawk is worth understanding.

Finish

The Fish Hawk was offered in a small set of dipped camo patterns rather than a rack of color choices. The original look was Mothwing camo, and AMS later ran the base bow in a blue Koi Carp pattern; the women's Lady Hawk version wore a Pink Mothwing dip, and the little Mini Hawk came in pink or blue. On a bowfishing tool the dip is less about style than about sealing the aluminum and fiberglass against a life spent wet, muddy, and knocked around a jon boat, and a full camo dip hides the scuffs that come with clambering across a fishing platform. There was no premium finish tier to weigh and no upcharge to navigate - you picked the pattern that fit the shooter and fished it. Surviving used examples usually still wear their original dip, sometimes sun-faded, which is cosmetic rather than functional on a bow like this.

Riser

The Fish Hawk's riser is forged and machined aluminum, built long and lean to set the bow at a 35.5-inch axle-to-axle length that is generous for a fishing rig. That length is the whole point of the geometry: bowfishers shoot off their fingers, and a longer riser opens the string angle so the fingers are not crushed against the nock at partial or full draw. It is a straightforward one-piece platform with no cutouts to chase weight and no accessory rails to manage - a bowfishing bow needs a rest, a reel seat, and not much else, and the Fish Hawk's riser keeps to that brief. The grip is molded into the riser itself rather than bolted on, sitting at a neutral wrist angle suited to quick, instinctive shooting rather than the repeatable hand placement a target archer chases. It is a plain, purpose-built handle, and on a tool that gets dunked, dropped, and dragged, plain and integrated is exactly right.

Grip

Handling the Fish Hawk is an exercise in not overthinking it. The grip is part of the one-piece riser and sits at a neutral, slightly-open wrist angle that suits the snap-shooting bowfishing demands, where you are reacting to a fish rather than settling into a deliberate anchor. There is nothing to adjust and nothing to torque, which matters more than it sounds on a bow whose hands are usually wet and slick with fish slime - the fewer fussy contact points, the fewer ways to fumble a fast shot. Most of the real ergonomics on a fingers-only fishing bow live on the string hand, and the Fish Hawk kit answers that with String Things finger tabs, with AMS's No Glovs available on request for shooters who want a rubberized draw surface instead of tabs. It is a hand position built for reaction speed, not for precision hold, and judged on that job it does what a bowfisher needs.

Limbs

AMS built the Fish Hawk on fiberglass limbs, and that material choice is the quiet reason the bow earned its reputation with beginners. Fiberglass is forgiving of the abuse bowfishing hands out - the accidental dry-fire, the drop onto a boat deck, the arrow that stops dead against a scale-armored fish - where a more brittle machined limb would be less tolerant. Peak draw weight on the adult bow runs 30 to 40 pounds, enough to drive a fish arrow through carp, gar, and buffalo at the close ranges bowfishing lives at, and it adjusts down without a press for a lighter shooter. The same limb philosophy scales across the family: the Junior and Mini Hawk run lighter fiberglass limbs on the identical single-cam idea, dropping to a 6-pound floor on the smallest bow. Owners routinely report shooting one all night without a hiccup, and the number of Fish Hawks still working years after the bow left the catalog is the practical proof that the limb design held up.

Eccentric System

The heart of the Fish Hawk is a single custom-engineered cam, and it is the feature that both defines the bow and separates it from the dual-cam AMS bows above it. The cam is tuned for snap-shooting: it builds maximum arrow speed at minimum draw length and carries no set draw stop, so the archer can draw to anywhere in the 15-to-30-inch window and release the instant a fish gives the shot. The listed let-off is a modest 20 percent or so - let-off being the percentage of peak weight your holding weight drops to at full draw - which is slight enough that this remains a snap-shooter rather than a hold-and-aim rig; there is no firm wall to hit, which is exactly why one AMS rep described the feel as shooting like a recurve. The single-cam layout also simplifies tuning to a degree a two-cam bow can't match, since there is no cam timing to synchronize, and on a rig that most people set up once and abuse all season that simplicity is a real asset. It gives up the extra penetration punch of the Fire Eagle's perimeter-weighted dual cam and the heavier draw weights that come with it, so the Fish Hawk is the lighter, simpler tool of the two. What it does deliver is more usable power than its middling draw weight suggests - one long-time owner drove an arrow so deep into a submerged log he had to haul the log home to recover the point. In my experience a single-cam fishing bow like this earns its keep by being boringly reliable: you point, you pull to wherever the fish is, you let go, and it just works.

Draw Cycle/Shootability

Drawing the Fish Hawk on fingers, the first thing I notice is how little the long riser pinches - at 35.5 inches axle-to-axle the string angle stays open, and that clearance is what makes a fingers-only bow comfortable to shoot for a full night. The draw itself is smooth and continuous with no stack and no defined wall to settle against, which is precisely what you want when you are throwing quick, reactive shots and never anchoring. Owners land on the same word for it again and again - smooth - and pair it with the observation that the bow shoots well with little to no tuning, which for a fishing rig that gets rigged once and then fished hard all summer is worth more than any spec. Because bowfishing shots are close and fast, there is no chronograph culture around this bow and nobody counting decibels; what matters is that the arrow leaves the instant you decide and hits hard enough to bury in a fish, and on both counts the Fish Hawk does its job. It is also genuinely forgiving of a new shooter's mistakes, which is why so many people describe learning the sport on one. What I keep coming back to is how unintimidating it is: hand it to someone who has never bowfished, and within a few shots they are snapping arrows at targets without fighting the bow, and that low barrier is the whole reason this rig sold for as long as it did.

Usage Scenarios

This is a dedicated bowfishing bow, and it is happiest on the rough fish that make the sport - carp, gar, buffalo, and tilapia at the close, fast ranges where you shoot on instinct. Picture a summer evening on a shallow flat: you are standing in the bow of a jon boat or wading a bank, fish are ghosting through the film, and shots come in a second or two with no time to settle. The Fish Hawk's smooth, anchorless draw and no-fuss single cam are built for exactly that tempo, and its light weight keeps a long night from wearing your arm out. It is equally at home as a family and first-timer bow: the whole Hawk lineup means a 4-year-old on a Mini Hawk, a 12-year-old on a Junior Hawk, and an adult on the 40-pound Fish Hawk can all fish the same platform, with the reel and rest moving up the ladder as a kid grows. Where it runs out of room is the truly big, deep quarry - a heavy gar holding down in clear water is a job for a heavier dual-cam bow, and plenty of owners paired their Fish Hawk with a beefier rig for exactly that, keeping the single-cam bow as a backup and small-fish tool. What it is not is a hunting or target bow: there is no sight, no release, and no need for either. Judged as a purpose-built, finger-shot fishing instrument for beginners and all-round nights on the water, it fits the job cleanly.

Versions

The Fish Hawk is best understood as a family of bows on one single-cam platform rather than a single SKU. The adult Fish Hawk carried an era MSRP around $249.95 for the bare bow, running 30 to 40 pounds; the Lady Hawk is the same bow with identical specs in a Pink Mothwing dip, also around $249.95, and AMS pitched it as roughly the punch of a 55-pound recurve. Below them sit the youth members: the Junior Hawk drops to a 10-to-20-pound draw with zero let-off for shooters aged about 10 to 14, and the Mini Hawk shrinks the whole chassis to a 29.125-inch axle-to-axle, 2-pound bow at 6 to 12 pounds of draw for children roughly 4 to 10 - both listed near $236.95. Every member came as a bare Bow Only or as a Bow Kit that added an AMS Retriever Pro reel with 200-pound line, an AMS Wave Rest, a set nock point, and an instructional DVD, with No Glovs finger protection available on request and arrows sold separately. Finishes ran to Mothwing and Koi Carp camo, with the pink dip reserved for the Lady Hawk and the Mini offered in pink or blue. It is one design, scaled and dressed to fit an entire boat's worth of shooters.

AMS Fish Hawk vs AMS Fire Eagle, PSE Mudd Dawg

Bow	AMS Fish Hawk	AMS Fire Eagle	PSE Mudd Dawg
Version	2016	2014	2025
Picture
Brace Height	7.75 "	7.75 "	6 "
AtA Length	35.5 "	35.5 "	32.25 "
Draw Length	15 " - 30 "	15 " - 30 "	0 " - 30 "
Draw Weight	30 lbs - 40 lbs	40 lbs - 50 lbs	30 lbs - 40 lbs
IBO Speed	fps	fps	fps
Weight	3.52 lbs	3.4 lbs	3.6 lbs
Let-Off	20%	20%
Where to buy Best prices online	$300 Compare prices	$199.99 Compare prices	$339.99 to $569.99 Compare prices
	compare more bows

Within AMS's own line, the natural comparison is the AMS Fire Eagle, the bow an AMS owner once described as making a great bow in the Fish Hawk even better. The Fire Eagle is the step up: it swaps the single cam for a perimeter-weighted dual cam that hits noticeably harder, moves the draw range up to 40 to 50 pounds for bigger, deeper fish, and carried a higher $369.95 launch MSRP, all while keeping the same finger-friendly 35.5-inch riser. The Fish Hawk answers with simpler tuning, lighter draw weights that open it to kids and lighter shooters, and a lower entry price, which is exactly why so many boats ran both. Cross-brand, the PSE Mudd Dawg is the other budget bowfishing compound worth a look - a wide-adjustment, zero-let-off fishing rig in the same value tier, aimed at the same first-rig buyer, from around $339.99. Against both, the Fish Hawk's edge is its beginner-proof simplicity and the whole-family draw-weight ladder; its limitation is that it is discontinued, so strings and service come from a general pro shop rather than the maker. The decision comes down to priorities: the AMS Fire Eagle for a shooter who wants more penetration and heavier draw, the PSE Mudd Dawg for a buyer who wants something new and supported, and the Fish Hawk for the first-timer or family that values a simple, forgiving, inexpensive single-cam rig and does not mind buying used.

Summary

The AMS Fish Hawk was the company's original bowfishing bow and its longest-serving one, a roughly $249 single-cam rig that anchored AMS's lineup from the mid-2000s through the mid-2010s, and sold on for a few years after, by being simple, tough, and easy for anyone to shoot. Its long 35.5-inch riser keeps finger pinch low, its fiberglass limbs and one-cam design survive the dry-fires and drops of new shooters, and its 30-to-40-pound range - extended down through the Junior and Mini Hawk to a 6-pound floor - makes it the rare bow a whole family can share and grow into. It is discontinued now, so buying one means shopping the used market, but the durability that made it popular is the same reason so many are still fishing. If I were handing a beginner or a young kid their first bowfishing rig - something forgiving they could learn on and not worry about breaking - a clean Fish Hawk would be near the top of the list. An excellent choice for the first-time or budget bowfisher and for families outfitting a range of shooters on one platform; anyone who wants more penetration and heavier draw should look at the AMS Fire Eagle, and buyers who want a new, warrantied bow should consider the current AMS Hooligan or the PSE Mudd Dawg instead.