Fishing for Food

Without a doubt, fishing is the easiest and best way to obtain calories and protein in a survival scenario.  Watching the third season of Alone on YouTube, I was reminded again of the importance of survival fishing.  The problem one of the contestants faced was that even though he had stored back plenty of dried fish, he was eating it so sparingly that he had to be pulled off the show for medical reasons because he was starving so badly.  Survival is hard work.  You must eat and you must eat sufficiently.  To endure a long term survival situation, you must get enough protein and calories.  Eventually, if you’re not getting enough sustenance, you will die.  If you are in a really difficult place where you must work hard to build shelter, procure firewood and sustain life, you could need as much as 5,000 calories a day to replenish what you burn.

Survival fishing isn’t sitting on a bank with a pole and taking your good time.  That’s leisure fishing, done for sport, when it’s not life or death.  Survival fishing means maximizing your catch with minimal outlay of energy.  Putting out trot lines or limb lines are the way to go as well as building weirs out of rocks or sticks. Put out your lines and let them work for you while you busy yourself with other tasks.

Put out as many lines as you can to maximize your chances of success.  One should always carry a minimum of ten fishing hooks in every emergency kit you make. Twenty or fifty fishhooks would be better.  They are light, take up very little space and are hard to imitate with natural materials.  While you may get by making a fish gorge type hook out of a small stick or using a pop can tab for an improvised hook, there is nothing quite as efficient or as effective as a metal, commercially made fish hook.

Remember also that you can catch a large fish with a small hook, but you cannot catch a small fish with a large hook!  I like to use number 6 hooks in my kits, they seem to be about the right size for catching just about everything.  And, you’re not trying to catch a trophy fish, you just need to eat.  As a matter or fact, most of the fish that you will probably eat in a survival situation might be considered bait on a normal day!  By the way, you can also eat worms or grubs if you need to, so if you have an abundance of bait and can’t catch any fish you can still eat.

As for fishing line, having para cord laces on your boots means that you can tease out the seven inner lines and use them for fishing and still have the outer sheath with a tensile strength of 200 lbs for your boots.  If your laces are 7 feet long, then each boot will give you seven lines of 50 lb test line for fishing for a total of fourteen 7 foot lines!  Otherwise, pack a small spool of fishing line in your kit.  I like to use the 80 lb test Spyder Wire brand.  You can also use it for shelter building or sewing up rips in your clothes if needed.  Pack as much as you can as it is light and takes up very little space.

Jesus called some of His disciples when they were fishing.  Namely, Peter and Andrew and James and John.  They were fishing with nets.  (You can also fish with a net if you pack a light weight hammock that is a net!)  Jesus said to follow Him and He would make them fishers of men.  The idea is that sharing the Gospel is like fishing.  Even though they were experts at catching fish on the Sea of Galilee, they needed to be taught how to catch the attention of people with the Truth about God’s Gift of Eternal Life.  Do you know how to share your faith?  Maybe you need to ask the Master Fisherman Himself to teach you how to become a fisher of men!

James B.

PS. You can check out my website at www.waypointsurvival.com and look at and order my custom knives at www.benderknifeworks.com.