Most survival tins or kits come with a bit of fishing line and a couple of hooks. In most wilderness areas fish are the probably the easiest protein source to catch (probably on par is catching small mammals or birds using a snare, although, due to their indiscriminate nature, snares should be left for real survival need).
Having fished for over 35 yrs, and caught a few, in all sorts of places from the Mid Atlantic to Swedish wilderness, the mighty Zambezi to the gravel pits of the home counties I like to think I have gained a bit of an insight into how to catch a fish. Even armed with a simple line and hook it should be possible to lure a bite in most waterways, but it is not always easy.
There are three things that really matter in fishing and getting these right is what makes all the difference: location, bait, presentation. Here are a few tips that should ensure if you are ever in a situation where you have to catch fish you stand the best possible chance.
Location – Think like a fish
It’s a bit of an obvious point but if you are not where the fish are you are going to struggle. It helps if you understand your quarry and their feeding/ behaviour habits but just following a few basic tips will reap dividends.
- On rivers and lakes look for the deep margins. The edges of the water, i.e. the margins are generally going to be where you fish if you are limited to a handline. Generally most species of fish close to the bank will spend more time in the deeper water where they have a greater choice of depth and are less exposed to predators. Even if you can’t see the depth, slower areas next to fast streams, steeper banks and areas with growth such as lilypads will have sufficient depth. Clearly shallow sloping margins offer little to the fish however if you can work where they drop off to deeper water that is useful feature.
- Fish like features, such as fallen trees, reeds and the sides of sandbars. If you are a prey fish these provide shelter from predators and if you are a predator it’s where you can find or ambush the prey. Rather than targeting open water, fish near features and you are almost certain to be near fish. Some features are under the water, weedbeds or bars, but differences in water colour can give the game away.
- Pools below waterfalls, between rapids or alongside faster flows are great places for fish to hang out and wait for the food to come to them. If you exist in fast flowing water you need to preserve energy but at the same time benefit from food delivered by the currents! The same applies for large rocks. If you sit by a clear river and watch the trout you’ll often see them holding station a few feet behind a rock, ducking out to snatch goodies floating past.
- Watch the water. Leaping small fish (escaping predators), mud clouds, or even moving reeds can indicate the presence of fish.
- TIME OF DAY: Why is this in location? Well the time of day is often the biggest driver of what the fish are doing and where they are. If you ever dive a coral reef at night you see marked difference in the species visible and their behaviours. It’s pretty much a universal truth that the best times to fish for most species are the hours around sunrise and sunset. Most species are active and active fish are generally looking for food.
So having scoped a few likely spots you then think about what you are going to try and tempt them with.
Bait – Easy to find and effective
If there is one bait present virtually everywhere and fishable with a small handline, it is the humble worm. Worms will catch virtually anything in the appropriate size range that swims, from perch to pike to bream, bass to flounder to trout. Probably the biggest downside of the worm is that they are not a super robust bait, easily nibbled off the hook by small fish, but if you are in desperate need of a meal who cares if the fish are small.
Finding the little wrigglers – Worms like dark, moist conditions. Whilst digging will usually surface a few the best and easiest place to find them is under logs, rocks or leaf litter. Putting a any sort of sheet, plastic bag, or piece of cloth etc. on the grass overnight and weighting it down will often yield a few by the morning.
Of course thats only really relevant to freshwater. Saltwater worm species, such as lugworm, can typically be found when the tide is out. Look for the worm casts (Spiral mound of sand/mud pushed out of the hole by the worm) and dig between those and the nearest small divoted hole (the other end of the U shaped worm hole).
There are a couple of circumstances where it just isn’t possible to find a worm, in a life raft at sea, or in a frozen wilderness for instance. Probably the best option under these circumstances is to try a more lure based approach. A piece of wool, some tinfoil from a food wrapper etc. can be used to fashion a jig style lure that might tempt a bite.
Presentation – Fooling the fish
So you have a likely spot and a bait to tempt a bite. However if you present a bait in the wrong way it can be hard to tempt a bite or even hook that fish. There are hundreds of books written on fooling every fish species with all manner of rig and bait combos, and every water condition. As this post is about survival fishing the task is somewhat simpler. With just a hook and a line options are limited, however with a bit of ingenuity and a few bits of wild materials you can fashion a range of approaches.
Hooking the bait
Perhap the biggest mistake non anglers make is believing that the hook should be hidden or buried in the bait. If you look at the methods used by the worlds best anglers to catch everything from the spookiest trout to the wariest old carp the norm is for the hook bend and point to be largely exposed. This is far more efficient in hooking the fish.
Small hooks will catch small or big fish but big hooks will make it harder catch small fish so when choosing a hook for freshwater I would err on the side of smaller, e.g. size 8. Larger hooks are the norm for saltwater applications so a size 1 or 2 would work for survival saltwater situations.
Mid-water or on the bottom
If you fling a handline randomly into a lake or river from the bank the chances are it will lie in a heap on the bottom or wash into the nearest twigs or weed. There are exceptions but generally for bottom fishing you want to add some form of weight to keep the bait where you put it. There are a few options for fixing a weight on the line, e.g. a stone with a hole or groove around which you can fasten the line. It’s not always that easy to find a usable rock so a few pebbles wrapped in a small piece of cloth and tied are a quick and easy solution. Typically aiming to attach the weight around 2ft back from the hook would be a reasonable start point.
Bottom fishing works well for, tah dah, fish that feed on the bottom but will also get a pick up from fish like perch. Most lake and river systems with muddy bottoms will hold fish like carp, bream, catfish or their equivalents in most of the world. For rockier and colder waters such as those found in Northern Europe and soft baits such as worms a float will often allow you to set bait depth with a bit more control and secure a quicker bite.
With float fishing the float serves two purposes. It allows you to set the bait to different depths and provides a method of bite indication. For this reason fixing the float so that it can be slid to different depths on the line is the aim. Classic materials that can be used for a float are a quill, or dry reed stem, but at a push any piece of dry twig will do. By splitting one end to fit over the line and lightly binding it you can create a slidable float. The addition of a small weight will help sink the bait.
If you float fish a worm in areas with fish such as perch present you are virtually guaranteed a bite. In terms of bait depth a good start point is to fish a few inches off the bottom and adjust accordingly until you find an appropriate depth.
Rods and hobo reels
When working with a basic handline from a survival kit you can improvise a few pieces of tackle to make retrieving and presenting bait more straightforward. A simple rod cut from a straight green sapling will allow you to swing the bait effectively where you want it when you are fishing within 10-15ft of the bank. Typically the line is set to a length a foot or two shorter than the rod.
A hobo reel is typically just a wooden spindle around which you can wrap the line. The advantage of this is that you can keep the line better organised and throw the rig/cast effectively without it getting in a tangly mess. Again improvising a suitable wooden handline , or even using something like a plastic bottle can help you fish more effectively.
A few notes: This post is all about making the most out of the handline in your survival kit. If you want to practice some basic handline fishing in the UK in a non survival situation, there are a few things to bear in mine. Handlining in freshwater in the UK, especially if you leave the line unattended is illegal, so use a stick rod. Additionally where-ever you fish you need a rod licence (apart from Scotland) and landowners permission to fish.