I made up a couple of different compact fishing kits for my PSK. When I was a kid on summer break from school, my best friend and I would ride our bikes around, often ending up near an oxbow lake. We always had our pocket knives with us, and we would carry a length of fishing line and a hook wrapped around a small stick in our pockets. We would catch grasshoppers or crickets to use for bait, and once we caught a small fish could cut it up to use for bait to catch more fish.
For my first kit I used a vinyl pouch that some fish hooks came in, it has a plastic strip to tuck the flap in to keep from losing the contents:
<edit: removed picture since it was a bit blurry and I had to get my photo count under 10, but the next photo shows the contents if it>
Contents:
2 jigs, spare hooks, split shot, and about 20 feet of fishing line wrapped around a small piece of wood.
For the second kit, I used a plastic case from an SD memory card, very compact, with similar contents:
spare hooks, a jig, split shot, and about 15 feet of fishing line:
While it will usually be possible to find a small stick to use as a fishing pole, I actually prefer to just use it as a hand-line, with no weight on unless needed because of current, or trying to throw out against the wind. My technique is to hold several large loops of line loosely with my left hand, and use just the weight of the hook and bait with 2 or 3 feet of line in my right, and sling it out. I don't use a bobber, just watch the line carefully. Since it is wrapped tightly around the stick when stored, it will retain some curly "springiness", and when you see the curls being straightened out, a fish is biting, so set the hook!
For bait, I like to use grasshoppers, caterpillars, worms, whatever I can find. Since it had rained the day before, the ground was still damp, and I just moved some logs and stuff and uncovered a grub, and some small worms.
The next challenge was getting down to the creek, there have been numerous bank cave-ins, and it was muddy from recent rain. Normal depth of this creek varies from a few inches, to maybe a few feet deep in some of the pools:
First spot I tried, the challenge was to get the bait out past the moss, and the first several feet of water closest to shore was only an inch or two deep.
Success! He's not very big, but if you catch enough of them, they can sustain you:
Notice the worm is still on the hook. I found I could catch quite a few of them on each piece of bait.
Then I caught his little brother. Could be eaten, or used for bait!
And another tiny one, and several more. I was trying to include pics of them all, but found there is a limit of 10 pics per post, and besides, for all you know they could be the same fish, they were so similar hah!
When you don't have anywhere to put the fish, you need a stringer to keep them from flopping around and getting back into the water. We used this method many times as a kid; find a fairly straight, slender branch with a "Y", place the end through the gills into the fish's mouth (that's why you need a slim branch, when the fish have small mouths). The "Y" stops them from sliding off the end.
Small fish means small bait to make sure they bite right on the hook, so I cut the worms into small pieces:
I tried another location that worked better, and caught a marginally better sized one:
I caught a bunch more, but you would think I just posted the same picture over and over, they were all about the same size, with a few bigger ones. I stopped counting after 10 within about 10 or 15 minutes. It might be a lot of work to clean that many, but at least you would not starve to death, and sunfish are pretty good tasting ( I might have to find a way to store some salt with my fishing kit, hmmm....
I'm not an expert animal tracker, but I think these are raccoon tracks? I know there are plenty of raccoons, coyotes and other wildlife even though this creek is in the middle of the city.
My best fishing location was a deeper spot just below these shallow rapids, with easier access from a gravel bar:
The water was probably 3, maybe 4 feet deep up against the bank where the current has cut a channel. This is where there were a LOT of fish.
Better view of the spot I caught the most fish from. It doesn't take much rain for this creek to flood, and all the bags and trash that have washed downstream get caught in the branches.
I know there are a number of 12-16 inch bass in this creek also, and probably some catfish, but if I am in survival mode, I'll most likely go for the easiest thing first, then after I have secured some basic food, perhaps use the smaller sunfish as bait for bass or other bigger fish. I'm a firm believer in having spare hooks also, because you might lose one on an underwater snag or have a fish break off. I like having the jigs in case I can't find bait, but if I can find bait, especially if the water is murky, I'll try that first.
For my first kit I used a vinyl pouch that some fish hooks came in, it has a plastic strip to tuck the flap in to keep from losing the contents:
<edit: removed picture since it was a bit blurry and I had to get my photo count under 10, but the next photo shows the contents if it>
Contents:
2 jigs, spare hooks, split shot, and about 20 feet of fishing line wrapped around a small piece of wood.
For the second kit, I used a plastic case from an SD memory card, very compact, with similar contents:
spare hooks, a jig, split shot, and about 15 feet of fishing line:
While it will usually be possible to find a small stick to use as a fishing pole, I actually prefer to just use it as a hand-line, with no weight on unless needed because of current, or trying to throw out against the wind. My technique is to hold several large loops of line loosely with my left hand, and use just the weight of the hook and bait with 2 or 3 feet of line in my right, and sling it out. I don't use a bobber, just watch the line carefully. Since it is wrapped tightly around the stick when stored, it will retain some curly "springiness", and when you see the curls being straightened out, a fish is biting, so set the hook!
For bait, I like to use grasshoppers, caterpillars, worms, whatever I can find. Since it had rained the day before, the ground was still damp, and I just moved some logs and stuff and uncovered a grub, and some small worms.
The next challenge was getting down to the creek, there have been numerous bank cave-ins, and it was muddy from recent rain. Normal depth of this creek varies from a few inches, to maybe a few feet deep in some of the pools:
First spot I tried, the challenge was to get the bait out past the moss, and the first several feet of water closest to shore was only an inch or two deep.
Success! He's not very big, but if you catch enough of them, they can sustain you:
Notice the worm is still on the hook. I found I could catch quite a few of them on each piece of bait.
Then I caught his little brother. Could be eaten, or used for bait!
And another tiny one, and several more. I was trying to include pics of them all, but found there is a limit of 10 pics per post, and besides, for all you know they could be the same fish, they were so similar hah!
When you don't have anywhere to put the fish, you need a stringer to keep them from flopping around and getting back into the water. We used this method many times as a kid; find a fairly straight, slender branch with a "Y", place the end through the gills into the fish's mouth (that's why you need a slim branch, when the fish have small mouths). The "Y" stops them from sliding off the end.
Small fish means small bait to make sure they bite right on the hook, so I cut the worms into small pieces:
I tried another location that worked better, and caught a marginally better sized one:
I caught a bunch more, but you would think I just posted the same picture over and over, they were all about the same size, with a few bigger ones. I stopped counting after 10 within about 10 or 15 minutes. It might be a lot of work to clean that many, but at least you would not starve to death, and sunfish are pretty good tasting ( I might have to find a way to store some salt with my fishing kit, hmmm....
I'm not an expert animal tracker, but I think these are raccoon tracks? I know there are plenty of raccoons, coyotes and other wildlife even though this creek is in the middle of the city.
My best fishing location was a deeper spot just below these shallow rapids, with easier access from a gravel bar:
The water was probably 3, maybe 4 feet deep up against the bank where the current has cut a channel. This is where there were a LOT of fish.
Better view of the spot I caught the most fish from. It doesn't take much rain for this creek to flood, and all the bags and trash that have washed downstream get caught in the branches.
I know there are a number of 12-16 inch bass in this creek also, and probably some catfish, but if I am in survival mode, I'll most likely go for the easiest thing first, then after I have secured some basic food, perhaps use the smaller sunfish as bait for bass or other bigger fish. I'm a firm believer in having spare hooks also, because you might lose one on an underwater snag or have a fish break off. I like having the jigs in case I can't find bait, but if I can find bait, especially if the water is murky, I'll try that first.
