Every year, approximately 2000 Americans get lost in the woods. Nature walks, camping, or whichever reason you might have for going out in the wilderness, is always an exciting experience. Nonetheless, if you are not careful, ending up as yet another figure in that statistic is not that difficult.
In fact, you could be careful and still get lost. For example, devices such as your GPS tracker might become faulty, leaving you without a clue as to where you are. And even for those with maps and compasses, those instruments might not be useful if you don’t know how to use them, as a significant number of people who get lost do possess these tools.
Once you find yourself in such a predicament, it means that your survival clock has just started ticking.
The next steps you take could very well save your life. The first step is usually to stop and compose yourself. Next, work out a plan on how to get yourself out of the situation, which often means retracing your steps.
Most importantly, you need food to fuel you as you might be in the situation for a while. If you don’t have food with you, it’s time to get creative as you must eat to get the energy you need to get yourself out of that jam.
If there’s a creek, lake, or any other water body nearby, there’s a good chance there’s fish in there. All you have to do is catch your dinner.
Fish is one of the most protein-dense foods on the planet. The benefit of protein is that it allows you to go for long periods without hunger.
Can you fish using the crudest tools?
This article is a guide to survival fishing techniques that might just save your life if you get lost in the wild.
Essential Facts about Survival Fishing
If you have to fish for your survival, keep the following things in mind:
- If you don’t have a survival fishing kit, or an ultralight telescopic fishing rod, you will need to improvise any material at your disposal to make a fishing tackle.
- Since you cannot afford to miss a meal, try and deploy multiple fish-catching tools at the same time. This not only enhances your chances of making a catch, but you will also free yourself to attend to other pressing issues, i.e., getting yourself out of that situation.
- Do not overlook the small fish like minnows. Chances are those are all you might get, so don’t waste an opportunity when you have one.
Survival Fishing Tips
If you don’t have a survival fishing kit with you, consider the following:
1. Improvise Fishing Hooks, Lines, and Baits
- Hook
You can improvise a fishing hook from a variety of materials such as paper clips, safety pins, needles, piece of metal, or even a bird wishbone. Look around for materials that can be modeled into hooks.
If you have a knife, you can carve out a hook from wood, bone, or shells. Consider making a gorge hook, which is a simple hook that has been utilized for centuries. It is tiny (about an inch or less), straight piece of hard material such as wood, antler or bone that is sharpened on both ends. It is curved in the middle where the line attaches to it.
You can then hide the gorge hook inside a piece of bait. Your plan is for the fish to swallow the bait, then you pull the line. In so doing, the hook should lodge itself in the fish’s throat.
- Fishing Line
To make a fishing line, you can utilize a range of natural and artificial materials. For example, threads from clothing or even dental floss can serve as lines. In your environment, look for a tree with a twisted bark and see if you can strip off some lines.
- Bait
For bait, cut off pieces from your clothes and design them in the shape of a worm. A strip of colored growth attached to a hook should serve as good bait.
You can attach your fishing line to a pole or hold it by hand while fishing. If you have created multiple hooks and lines, then attach the ones you will not operate personally to a stake that is rooted to the ground. You can also tie the line to tree branches overhanging the water.
You may also use ‘bobby poles’ for lines that you will not be handling yourself. Bobby poles are straight willow canes or shoots that are driven into the bank. Ensure that they are long enough to overlook the water’s surface when driven into the bank at an angle. Attach your line, hook and bait, then drop the hook and bait into the water.
2. Fishing Spears
Fortunately, being in the wilderness means you have an array of materials you can use to design a makeshift spear. For example, you can tie a sharp piece of wood, bone, or metal to one end of a stick to make it a spear.
You may also sharpen one end of a stick so that it becomes sharp or barbed.
- Jawed Spear
This type of spear can provide even better chances of making a catch. To design, make a 6-8 inch split on one end of a long sapling pole such as a green willow. Next, make sharp, rear-angling teeth into each flat side of the split.
Now tie the point where the split has reached, so it doesn’t move up further. Open the split and put a 2-3 inch twig between the ‘jaws,’ so they don’t close. When you thrust your jawed spear into a fish, the twig will be knocked off, thus shutting the split with the fish inside.
Spears allow you to catch larger fish. However, it takes time to learn how to make and use one. So, consider practicing at home before venturing into the wild.
3. Using Fish Traps
You can borrow on Native American ancient fishing practices and construct a fish weir to trap and catch fish in rivers and tidal waters.
To get started, drive sticks longer than the water’s depth side by side into the shallow water. Create a rectangular wall of sticks with an opening in the middle. From the middle, create a ‘V’ shaped wall of sticks. Leave an opening where the point of the ‘V’ meets, as that where you will place the weir.
When the fish encounter your first wall, they will go through the opening in the middle, only to be guided into your trap by your ‘V’ wall.
Your trap can be rocks arranged to create a small enclosure. Once the fish is there, you can either spear them or catch them by hand.
4. Noodling
This is the name given to the art of catching fish by hand. If the water isn’t too cold, enter it and begin your search. Look beneath rocks, undercut banks, hollow logs and any other places the fish could hide in when in shallow water.
Noodling is one of the most popular ways of catching fishes with sucker mouths such as catfish. When you spot the fish, corner it immediately, so it doesn’t dart out. Next, move your hands along its body until you can grab its gills or mouth. If you don’t like the prospect of catching a fish by hand, you can spear it as soon as you corner it.
5. Using Nets
If you are in luck and the water body next to you happens to have an abundance of fish, a makeshift fishing net can yield more produce than spearing or using a fish line.
You can improvise a net using your shirt. Stretch the shirt between two sticks, push it in front of you, and start making your way towards a bank or small cove. Once you get to shallow water, quickly lift your ‘net’ of the water. Hopefully, there will be some fish inside the net.
6. Poisoning
Also known as stunning, this refers to the use of certain plants that are poisonous to fish to stun the fish. In North America, the flowers, leaves, or stems of mullein are used to stupefy the fish by dropping them in shallow pools. You can also crush buckeye nuts for the same purpose.
Cooking Your Fish
Fish meat has a very short shelf life. As such, you will need to cook the fish as soon as possible after you catch it. Eating the fish raw is a bad idea since they typically contain parasites that are harmful to humans.
To cook your fish, you can wrap it in leaves and steam it in a makeshift pot, or you can simply roast it on a stick.
Getting lost in the wild can be a terrifying experience. Nonetheless, that isn’t the time to be helpless. As you work out a plan to get out of that situation, put your survival skills into use, and catch yourself some fish to sustain you. It can take a while before you find your way or search & rescue finds you.
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