Fishing with no eqiupment

[Dave Barker]

Hi al.
I was on a family trip at the weekend to a mountain ranch.

we had a place booked and seeing as we had small children with us I knew we were not going to go far.

So apart from firelighting stuff i took almost nothing with me.

Arriving at the ranch we saw that there was a mass of water that had an awful lot of fish life... indeed there were lots of people fishing for the mountain trout.

it made me wonder... how on earth would i catch food had i been lost and found this lake? I can light a fire, and make myself a (sort of) shelter but thats not much help if all you have are blue berries and mountain cloud berries to eat.

i have learnt al i know from this forum, and recon someone here has the answer.

I know that ideally one should have place for a little fishing kit in their pack.. but what abaout if you don't have one?

 

[Keith_Beef]

I vaguely remember Jack Hargreaves explaining a technique he called "Gypsy fishing" on "Out of Town" (I must have been about seven years old). I remember him mentioning that the technique uses a "throat hook" that was considered very naughty, maybe illegal, in England.

You need some sort of line, maybe you could make it from horsehair or from brambles of some tree bast.

For a hook, you use thorns from a blackthorn (the tree that gives sloes) or maybe a wild plum tree).

I don't remember what you'd use for bait, but maybe any sort of leftover meat would do, or maybe even a leaf with a light coloured and a dark coloured side. As the leaf moves in the water, the change in colour as the sun hits one side, then the other, triggers a fish's attach instinct.


Keith.

 

[weekend_warrior]

You might like this link - hook history! With pics..

http://www.mustad.no/abouthooks/h_history.php

Cordage? Well, the core of decent paracord makes a nice line.. I tend to always have a hank in my bag.

Another hook is the toggle type - looks just like a sharpened coat toggle but smaller. You attach the line through the hole on the middle and lay the toggle up (parallel) to the line using bread paste or somesuch to keep it there. once taken, the toggle will open out and act as a throat hook.. Works well for greedy fish - like trout!

 

[andyn]

Isn't there an ?illegal? method know as tickling, where you just use your hands? Probably works best in streams through i'd imagine? Must take an orful lot of patience too.

 

[Ed]

Fish tickleing is a very old poaching technique. Simply kneel (or lie down if you want to get deep in the water) by the bank with your hands in the water till you feel the fish brush past.... in one swift movement, cup the fish in your hands and throw onto the bank (you may find hooking a finger in the gills helps this). Of course you have to know about your fish.... what ones swim along the bank, when, whereabouts they are likely to be (eg: in the shade?, swimming in reeds?) etc....

But its highly illegal to do this in the UK.


Ed

 

[Stuart]

you could make you own cordage fishing reel and make a hook

my favourite Bush fishhook is this one:

made from a sharpened wishbone fitted into a wooden shaft.

other designs include but are not limited too:

left to right: a wooden gorge designed to lodge in the gullet, another wishbone hook, a thorn hook (damaged), wooden fishhook, bone and wood fishhook.

here is a fishing set using nettle cordage, a stone weight, wooden float (note the peg which allows you to adjust the position of the float, which in this picture is the wrong way around, the wide end of the peg should be on the reel side of the float) and hand reel (the reel tapers to a narrow cross section beneath the cordage, so the is more cordage on the reel that there appears). there is also another wishbone hook in the centre of the picture.

there are of course many other designs.

 

[bambodoggy]

I'm fairly sure these methods are illegal so I mention them here for education and true survival purposes only:

Fish traps can be made either with rough and ready basket work or by cutting the top off an old plastic bottle and turning it in on itself (bit like a infant school rain gauge) and then baited with worms, dead fish offel or anything else you can find. You can find fish trap designs all over the internet so I won't go into discribing them here. The fish swims in throught the tunnel but either can't swim out or is too stupid to turn round or swim backwards lol

Or failing that if you could weave yourself a very simple net, out of plant fibres or by unthreading a wooly jumper and use it as a gill net.

Finally, if it's not that big a stream and you're there for a while then you could think about damming the stream, then dam it again further up and then slowly let water out of the lower dam, as the water level in the middle drops so you just pick the fish up from the sludge on the bottom.

As I say, these are longer term ideas and not for the day tripper and they are also ONLY to be used in emergancies where you really have NO other choice.

Hope that helps a bit,

Bam.

 

[ilovemybed]

Tickling works, but you'll be lucky to find a place on a body of standing water to do it; as you say much better on a small stream.
You can't let the fish see you so you have to be very low indeed, and you can't let them hear you so tread carefully. The same trick of light that makes straws look bent in your juice means fish can see better on the bank than you might expect.
Lie on the bank and gently put your arm in the water well behind the fish, then slowly bring it forwards till its on the far side of the fish, and your hand is curled under it and your fingers are gently brushing its belly (no need to actually "Tickle" it!). You'd be surprised how easy it is to get this far. Be sure not to disturb its fins too much or it'll get spooked though.

Then you have a choice - based on your dexterity, experience and confidence.
First, you can try to scoop the fish out of the water onto the bank as fast as you can like a grizzly - makes a big splash and isn't very graceful, but does work a fair amount of the time. You will get wet and look silly
The other is to push your luck and get right to the front of the fish, just behind its chin, then quickly grab it around the gill area where you can get more grip. Not easy, but much more stylish and the better technique in my book. Very difficult with big strong fish like a salmon though - wrestling one of them out of the water one handed isn't easy!


EDIT: In terms of legality - I think it's a no-no in England, but I think it's ok in Scotland if you have the permission of the person who owns the water?

 

[match]

Elder pith can be used as a simple fishing float.

Take a branch of elder about a 1/2" thick, whittle away at the stem with a knife until you're left with just he central core of pith and a very fine surface layer of wood (adds a bit of strength).

Tie your line to one end and if there is a very slight weight on the line along with the hook/bait it should float vertically as a normal fishing float would, giving you a bite indicator.

 

[Ahjno]

Fishing with no equipment ...
You could try to make some sort of dam, and cut a natural "finger" of the lake off from the rest. I know it works in rivers, so this might work aswell - but it would be a bit harder to realise ...

Personally I wouldn't go for fishing in that case, considering you've got a knife I would go for constructing some kind of trap to catch a bunny or squirrel.

 

[mojofilter]

Tickling works, but you'll be lucky to find a place on a body of standing water to do it; as you say much better on a small stream.
You can't let the fish see you so you have to be very low indeed, and you can't let them hear you so tread carefully. The same trick of light that makes straws look bent in your juice means fish can see better on the bank than you might expect.
Lie on the bank and gently put your arm in the water well behind the fish, then slowly bring it forwards till its on the far side of the fish, and your hand is curled under it and your fingers are gently brushing its belly (no need to actually "Tickle" it!). You'd be surprised how easy it is to get this far. Be sure not to disturb its fins too much or it'll get spooked though.

Then you have a choice - based on your dexterity, experience and confidence.
First, you can try to scoop the fish out of the water onto the bank as fast as you can like a grizzly - makes a big splash and isn't very graceful, but does work a fair amount of the time. You will get wet and look silly
The other is to push your luck and get right to the front of the fish, just behind its chin, then quickly grab it around the gill area where you can get more grip. Not easy, but much more stylish and the better technique in my book. Very difficult with big strong fish like a salmon though - wrestling one of them out of the water one handed isn't easy!


EDIT: In terms of legality - I think it's a no-no in England, but I think it's ok in Scotland if you have the permission of the person who owns the water?

Good description of the technique, but I'm pretty sure guddling is not a legal method of taking game fish up here either.

 

[ilovemybed]

Yep, having checked, it appears the Environment agency banned it on the 30th April 1998 in the legislation that stopped people poisoning huge swathes of river to scoop up the fish, and dynamite fishermen. Tickling is hardly in the same league as those..!!!

However, if you were stumbled upon, lying on the bank with your arm in the water, you could just be washing your hands, or perhaps retrieving some dropped item?

Anyway, it's definitely a legitimate technique in the situation postulated in the first post.

 

[den]

As a survival thing and not to be tried in your local park lol as it is most likely very illegal.

The old sack stuffed with straw is always a good one, Mainly for eels i know.


The thing is you don't need a sack, a container with a entrance stuffed with grass will do the trick. If you make an entrance don't tie the retrieval cord on the opposite side to the opening as the eels will fall out the bottom as you retrieve it.
Id pull it up every 20 mins.

You could use a T shirt stuffed with grass or better pulled over a small sapling frame tying off the ends and making the arms into one way flaps like ( I> <I ) held in position with cordage will work and open up your catch past just eels.

 

[torjusg]

I don't think tickeling trout is illegal in Norway, but eitherway noone could deny me that. It seems wrong and unnatural for me to outlaw a something as basic as your bare hands and thereby forcing you to use additional, possibly commercial equipment.

By the way, I use two methods when handfishing trout.

I tickle it when it hides under rocks. Very efficient. In overpopulated streams I can catch 20-30 of them in a few hours. When the trout is scared it runs under a rock or the bank. Sometimes one can see the tail sticking out from the hiding place (They believe they are hidden when they cannot see themselves). If not visible, search gently with your hands from the direction the trout entered the hiding place. When you locate the fish, gently feel your way along the belly, the trout will not run by this as it likes it. When you reach the gills, pinch under them as quick as you can and throw the fish ashore.

The other metod is only effective when the trout is running to spawn. It also only works in shallow streams. When I see a little shoal of trout I quickly run out in the stream and chase them onto very shallow water where I either dispatch them by using a simple club, a leister or I throw them into the grass by using the bear-swing.

If there is anything I am good at in this world, it is catching trout. I have also successfully used river traps, simple twig-spears, encircling nets, ordinary gill-nets, nets under the ice, ordinary ice-fishing and of course the common fishing rod. I have yet to try aboriginal hooks and thread.

Torjus Gaaren

 

[Stew]

How about making a Leister Spear?

 

[Stuart]

after reading Torjus post I want to go over to Norway and go fishing with him!

 

[pumbaa]

I remember watching a program on sky called Oakey Noodling . In America's south these guys were wading out into the lakes , probing as they went for holes . When they found one , they would waggle their fingers in the hole !! Hopeing a catfish would bite !!! When one does , they grab its bottom lip , and drag it out !!
These catfish can be upwards of 100lb . All this is done under the surface as well ! So its not the safest method , but these guys made it look very productive .
When they caught one , they would thread a bit of bailer twine through its lip and hang upto 4 or 5 of these fish off it (all alive) before returning to the bank . Some do it alone , But would have to recomend taking a freind out with you , one that can drag you and a few hundred weight of catfish to the bank if necesary .
Hope this was of interest.
Pumbaa

 

[Keith_Beef]

I remember watching a program on sky called Oakey Noodling . In America's south these guys were wading out into the lakes , probing as they went for holes . When they found one , they would waggle their fingers in the hole !! Hopeing a catfish would bite !!! When one does , they grab its bottom lip , and drag it out !!
These catfish can be upwards of 100lb . All this is done under the surface as well ! So its not the safest method , but these guys made it look very productive .
When they caught one , they would thread a bit of bailer twine through its lip and hang upto 4 or 5 of these fish off it (all alive) before returning to the bank . Some do it alone , But would have to recomend taking a freind out with you , one that can drag you and a few hundred weight of catfish to the bank if necesary .
Hope this was of interest.
Pumbaa

I've been on a lake in Lincolnshire where you can do this with carp.

Put the tips of your first and middle fingers in the water, so that they just go through (no more that 1/8" or so). The carp will come and suck on your fingers. Push your index finger straight and hook your middle finger and lift a six pound carp into the boat.


Keith.

 

[torjusg]

Sure wouldn't take a bath in the nude there!

Torjus Gaaren

 

[Burning_Man]

I remember seeing a nice fish trap for shallow streams. Where rocks are used to build spiral walls that leave a funnel entrance similar to that of the woven/bottle fish trap. In theory the fish swims in but has little chance of finding the way out. I have always thought this could also just be a spiral from the bank and forming a narrow entrance with the bank forming the second wall. Should be good for fish hugging the bank but may be easier for them to escape. If you where located in one area this could give a regular supply of captive fish.
All theoretical.