we went for my friends birthday. Three of us have never fished gar one of us has but for a different species of gar not alligator gar. Mark was helpful on setting up. The trip gave him a deposit and then we paid him when we showed up he went out of his way to find the fish our first. was kind of quiet but then he got us into them later in the afternoon. Got a big one and two other ones that weren't bad size either. He is knowledgeable on the area and the fishing. What a great trip even got lucky enough to see two dolphins make it up the neck of the river from the gulf , highly recommended !!!!!!!! read more

My family and I had a fantastic time with Mark. His equipment is top notch and he had us on gar all day long with some huge ones as well. His humor kept us laughing as well. I also went back with my college buddies. We had an equally great experience. We will be back for sure. Robb and family. read more

My son and I have been out with Mark a couple of times and we always have a blast. He put us on some nice gar and then later helped us get an awesome gator! He's always patient and makes sure we have everything we need for the trip. I highly recommend, 5 stars. read more

If you want to be yelled at and very minimal instruction on how to set up bow and then yelled at again for doing it wrong your in the right place. I was able to catch two fish warning dont bring kids it will not be a good experience. If you have thick skin you'll be ok but I would not rebook again. read more

I've been out with Mark a couple of times now and always have a blast. He puts us on some huge gar and walks me through exactly how to handle them. Very cool boat as well. Highly recommend. read more

Mark is excellent at what he does. I have been out with him for four full day bowfishing trips thus far and have never been disappointed. I will continue to come back in the future. He makes it well worth the trip to come all the way from Arizona to fish with him. Mark lives a nomadic lifestyle because he is constantly chasing these fish to put clients on them. He works very hard to give clients the most opportunities and each trip has always panned out for us. Other guides are lazy and will take clients to the same old spots when they know they will not deliver, because it's convenient. Mark spends his life chasing these fish all around the state and will not be able to let you know where to fly into, until the week before your trip, because he is moving around so much to find them and give clients the best opportunity. Always a blast and he's the only gator gar Texas guide I'd recommend read more

I would not recommend this guide at all, read why below!!!! The equipment is very old and does not work well. The braid on the reels consists of several pieces tied together to make a long enough run, but just. When asked about the braid strength we were told 65-85 LB. However, we are fishing for 100-250 LB GAR. No GPS or depth finder on the boat and was navigating at night with his phone or he was reading texts while driving, Yea Seriously. Grounded the boat twice while running near full speed in shallow water at night with no GPS or depth finder. Ran the boat at full speed with all white LED lights on all around the boat and I am pretty sure that is not legal. Now we did land 3 GAR fishing on a 6-hour trip, and one was 60 inches (Told that was average). Brought two others to the boat one well over 60 inches, however, the line broke. The client was blamed for It breaking. Not the old line tied together or lack of instruction from the guide to ensure landing. Had 8-10 runners and only landed 3. That is not 90% or even 50%. Was told to let the GAR run with the bait for 10 minutes. This would ensure it swallows it and gets a good hook set. Yea did not work. He also said sometimes he lets them run for an hour. However, at the 10-minute mark, most line is out. When the line ran out completely once, the client was blamed again. Even though Guide was told hey the line is running out. At night water conditions were shitty while moving around. Instead of slowing down and taking it easy guide decided to go full or near full speed and slammed clients against the deck hard several timers. When I went to move to get to a less bumpy spot on the boat I was screamed at to stay where I was and he said I was told it would be rough. Yes, very rude and disrespectful. Told one person on the boat GAR does not exist in the river where he lives even though that person has personally seen GAR caught there. The night bow fishing trip was a 100% waste of time. In 6 hours, we saw one flounder and were able to shoot it. The guide never suggested changing to another location just kept on the same location even though the fish were obviously not there. We saw a few sting rays but missed several opportunities to shoot as the guide kept moving the boat forward over them before we could shoot. In a nutshell, we paid $1,850 to catch 3 GAR and shoot 1 flounder and a couple of sting rays. I have taken out several guides and this was by far the worst. I have taken out guides and have not caught much. However, those guides did everything they could by moving locations and changing tactics. This guide just seemed like he did not care and was just there to collect a payday. The fact he hit the side of the boat ramp when putting in the boat during the day and had no avionics was a huge red flag to start off the day. To end on a positive note. His boat is very well built, and he does seem to know how to drive it in rough seas when he tries. Once the night trip was completely over and we headed in he was able to maneuver through 1.5-2-foot swells without slamming us to the deck. I do believe at one time he was a great guide, but may just be worn down and needs a break. read more

We went out with Mark today for Father's Day and couldn't have asked for a better trip! We had an absolute blast! We will definitely be going out again soon! read more

See all

Mark Malfa is a scam artist that makes a lot of false guarantees towards his trips. I booked a combination alligator hunt with 2 tags, gar fishing and wild boar hunting trip. I placed a $1000 deposit via PayPal on the trip 3 July 2021 based off of a verbal agreement expecting to receive some written form of contract validation that never happened. I asked on numerous occasions for the area that we would be conducting the trips and his response was and I quote "do that a week out from the trip because hotels won't be an issue". As an out of state client how am I supposed to make plans for a trip if I don't know where I'm going until a week out from the agreed upon dates. I contacted him on numerous occasions trying to get an ideal of where to go and find out what the plans for meeting up and working out the details. 3 Aug I finally insisted on location areas so I can properly plan for this trip. He finally offered the areas of West Columbia or Bay City but we would probably have to move to Inez or Wharton for the boar hunting portion of the trip. WTF kinda garbage information for planning a trip is that? I contacted him again on 2 September to confirm everything was on tract for happening and if there was any changes please notify me. His response was Wharton was near the boar hunt and then we would probably be going to Dayton for the alligator hunt. Well that's the first time hearing that information on where we were going for the gator portion of the trip. He also stated that everything was and I quote "good to go and that he was just waiting on the land owner get the tags". He also stated he had called the land owners about the tags with no response back. Duh, things are looking pretty shady. So I told him to keep me informed on the status of the trip. 6 Sep he calls me stating that he was unable to get the alligator tags after all but guaranteeing everything was set but I could still come down and do some fishing and boar hunting with him. I stated that the reason this trip was made on the these dates is because alligator season has a small window and everything had to be coordinated based off the season availability. I took a hard stance and said you have up to 16 September to come up with the promised tags for the trip. Now he changed his words and said he couldn't promise the tags now but insisted on me to come down and do some fishing and boar hunting and if he wasn't able to get the tags it would affect him financially. 11 Sep I contacted him again to check up on the tags. His response was I believe I will be getting the tags but won't know for at least 2 more days.13 Sep he contacted me stated we were good to go go as far as the tags and we would need to meet up in Anahuac Tx and for me to google it to get directions. I responded back a couple hours later after researching the area and requirements for obtaining tags and found out that was state area property and you needed to have your paperwork submitted to the state by mid August to obtain 1 tag. I told him that I was cancelling my trip with him because I now longer felt that this was a credible trip. He became verbally abusive calling me all kinds of names and attacking my veteran status and making very rude comments about my mental status but also insisted I come down and go fishing with him and shoot some hogs. So to summarize this entire experience. He is very rude, very disorganized with a lot of empty promises. No notifications on price increases. Very vague on travel details with constant variations in his details about the trip. He's not veteran friendly and in most of all he's an asshole. Don't waste your money on this clown because he will screw you over in a heartbeat. All statements mentioned in this review is throughly documented the texts messaging and PayPal. read more

Mark crushed it. Great guide, very funny, and knowledgeable. Saw and caught plenty of gar. Would highly recommend using these services.

I booked this trip with Big Fish Bowfishing for my wife and I to have a weekend getaway, we are experienced in bowfishing and thought this would be something different than the same old lakes we go to. I booked a night trip because that's when we like to fish, Mark called me the day of the trip and said he had a cancellation and asked us if we would rather go during the day, he told me he wanted to go home and not spend the night at the hotel. I wasn't too excited about day fishing but he said that if we didn't see any fish that we would stick to the original plan and night fish. We saw one small stingray in two hours of trolling around, Mark decided to pull over to the bank and wait 2 1/2 hours until dark, which I was fine with, BUT he counted that 2 hours of NOT SEEING ANYTHING against my 6 hour trip, when I didn't want to fish the daytime to begin with. But we were determined to have a good time so we waited until dark and went back out, he just couldn't find the fish, we had very few shot opportunities but managed to land a few fish in the boat. This trip was very discouraging and NOT worth the money he is charging, especially for novice people wanting to learn how to bowfish. I went with Big Fish Bowfishing because he had been on some TV shows and we wanted to have the best opportunity at some big fish or at least a bunch of decent fish, I paid $850 for this trip and will never use this service again, there are too many other guides out there that will work to make sure you have a good time and give you plenty of shot opportunities. read more

Just recently went on my fourth guided trip and was once again thrilled with the quantity/size of the fish I was put on. There's never a dull moment and would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a rod and reel or bow fishing trip. read more

My son, brother and I booked a fishing trip with Big Fish Bowfishing, Mark Malfa in the end of March 2018. $900.00 for 8 hours 3 people. Guaranteed shot opportunities at giant alligator gar and several other legal species. We are very experienced bow fishermen. We didn't have a single shot opportunity all day. We were at Choke Canyon and there were gar there but none were close enough. We spent a lot of our time sitting and waiting for the fish to come to us while malfa sat in the back on the phone. When I asked about the guarantee he said "that's not supposed to be on there." He then deleted the word on his website. I asked for a 50% refund but got nothing. The boat broke down near the end on our time and we had to be towed off the lake. He offered to take us again for full price but I booked with Buck Medley for my son and I and we both got giant gar and hogs for less money and a great time!!! A flashy ad looks good but doesn't mean anything. He was pissed that we went with another outfitter instead of going with him again but we were not impressed. Dale Berhow from Minnesota. read more