Couple of things to add to your tin.

[cultivateitnow]

This may have come up before but I have not seen it since I've been hanging around here. I noticed watching the survivor shows that hardly any of them catch fish. It appears a few of them really don't know how to fish and just search of something to put on the hook and throw it anywhere. Learning to fish with your kit should be a skill everyone learns.

A few years back I decided since I never fly fished I should learn how. I was already pretty good with lures, and live bait. Along with learning to fly fish I though it would be nice to be able to tie flies too. What I never expected was learning fly fishing is way more productive than any other type of fishing I tried over the years. In fact I would often fish beside bait fishermen and catch a limmit without them ever catching the first fish. Many times they walked down to my area to see what I was using.

All one really needs is some type of thread, a hook, and a feather. The tricky part is making the feathers look like the local hatch the fish are feeding on. When learning to tie flies I diiscovered two groups, modern and traditional fly tyers. The modern groups likes to use beads, yarn, or darn near anything they can tie to a hook. A vast majority of them use craft foam. If can be cut to any shape, folded, doubled, etc.

A simple fly can be made from a smal strip of foam first tied to the gap or rear of th hook pointing away from the eye. Next bend the foam up to the eye and tie it down just back of the end of the foam. The result is a fly that had a round body and a smaller head that floats. It looks like a favorite food to most fish and works very well.

One could also use that fly as a float and tie a dropper nymph, either real or a tied fly.

The craft foam comes is 8.5 x 11 sheets and sells for about $.30 per sheet. It comes in all colors. The foam could be cut to line the bottom, top, or both of your tim ro help make it water tight too. You can use it for many things including starting fires, making flies, floats, or whatever.

How many people add a feather, fly line or tipit, or foam to their tins?

 

[gadgetgeek]

That is a great idea especially in places where you could predict the type of fish you are looking for. Another good option is familiarizing yourself with local live bait, where to find grubs, worms, and the like, and what fish will take them. I know that when salt-water fishing in Australia, I took bait, but probably could have caught bait where I was.

 

[cultivateitnow]

The thing about flies is you don't have to go looking and one "grub" fly can catch 50 to 75 fish before their teeth cut the thread. Salt water fly fishing is a big thing now and people tie bait fish, crabs, shrimp, etc.

I thik the big difference is with bait fishing you let the fish find the bait. While fly fishing you learn where the fish are and present the bait in a manor they believe it is real, fresh, and might get away of they don't hurry. I've had fish run into each other trying to get my fly. it is a blast to watch.

 

[akennedy73]

cool info - i never knew fly fishing was so effective, i've always thought of it as a "sporting" way to fish ("sporting" = difficult)

any pics of your simple PSK flies? what kind of hooks work best? what line? you say some type of thread, do you mean sewing thread?

beyond a cane pole and worms or grasshoppers, my fishing knowledge is pretty limited

 

[Zombie Zeke]

Good lord, I can't catch a fish to save my life with bait and reel how in the hell am I going to do it with a feather...

 

[JohnWayne360]

Well, hypothetical question here: if you found yourself in the proverbial survival situation (or extremely desperate to catch fish) and if you happened to be wearing a down jacket, would the filling work for fly fishing?

 

[Evolute]

I was traveling a few years ago with a photo buddy who used to be a professional fly fisherman. He was amazing – freaky to watch. He would scan a stretch of river by binoculars, to decide the best spot to go. He'd get to the river bank, and snatch an insect out of the air, to see what the fish were feeding upon, at the moment. Then he'd get out a box full of polar bear fur, rooster feathers, and various things, and he'd make a fly on the spot, to match what the fish were eating. Then he'd put on his polarized sunglasses, and examine the river, to find exactly where and how to cast. He had a huge success rate, catching a fish perhaps 3 out of 4 times he'd cast.

A skilled fly fisherman can definitely stay well fed, under the right circumstances.

That said, I don't necessarily agree with this:

Learning to fish with your kit should be a skill everyone learns.

I don't consider staying fed to be a top priority in a short-term survival situation. Additionally, there are plenty of other ways to acquire food that could be learned – trapping, hunting by slingshot, foraging edible plants, foraging edible fungi, foraging for insects and grubs, and so on. If someone has the time and interest to learn fly fishing and carry kit for the task – great! If not, it's a fairly trivial, low-priority short-term survival skill, anyway.

 

[Shotgun]

I don't understand. Why put foam in your kit to make a fly when you can just put 2 or 3 finished flies in there?

 

[cultivateitnow]

I don't understand. Why put foam in your kit to make a fly when you can just put 2 or 3 finished flies in there?

It takes less room and you can make way more than 2 or 3 flies. You also could use the foam to start a fire or float a fishing line, etc. If you had a needle you could make a devie that pointed north too.

 

[cultivateitnow]

I was traveling a few years ago with a photo buddy who used to be a professional fly fisherman. He was amazing – freaky to watch. He would scan a stretch of river by binoculars, to decide the best spot to go. He'd get to the river bank, and snatch an insect out of the air, to see what the fish were feeding upon, at the moment. Then he'd get out a box full of polar bear fur, rooster feathers, and various things, and he'd make a fly on the spot, to match what the fish were eating. Then he'd put on his polarized sunglasses, and examine the river, to find exactly where and how to cast. He had a huge success rate, catching a fish perhaps 3 out of 4 times he'd cast.

A skilled fly fisherman can definitely stay well fed, under the right circumstances.

That said, I don't necessarily agree with this:



I don't consider staying fed to be a top priority in a short-term survival situation. Additionally, there are plenty of other ways to acquire food that could be learned – trapping, hunting by slingshot, foraging edible plants, foraging edible fungi, foraging for insects and grubs, and so on. If someone has the time and interest to learn fly fishing and carry kit for the task – great! If not, it's a fairly trivial, low-priority short-term survival skill, anyway.

To me this is like saying put a knife, compus, and striker in your kit but don't learn how to use them.

I didn't say use them for a year. Example would be survivorman. He went a week with no food one time because he couldn't catch anything and clearly didn't know how. It would be silly to follow a stream down hill for days and not be able to eat a few fish on the way to keep you energy up. It's another option or tool to have in your tool chest. It doesn't mean you have to use it, it mean you can if you need to. If you don't then go ahead and take your hooks and line out of you kit and put something in there you do know how to use.

 

[j williams]

I have a section of tippet, and a couple flies in my PSK. I added em when I got my takedown fly rod. I also have a few hooks, split shot, and swivels. For line I have a sewing bobbin loaded up with spyderwire. I have thought about loading up a bobbin with some fly line though. That stuff is tough, and could be used for lots of stuff. Havent done it yet though. Im still really new to fly fishing.

 

[Evolute]

To me this is like saying put a knife, compus, and striker in your kit but don't learn how to use them.

Not at all. The difference is that a knife, compass and striker are far, far, far more likely to make a difference in a short-term survival situation. There's a good reason that those are almost always in "Ten Essentials" lists, and fishing gear is just about never on those lists.

It's great to have fishing gear and know how to use it, but everything has an opportunity cost, and everything takes up space within a limited P.S.K. tin. Statements like "Learning to fish with your kit should be a skill everyone learns" imply that it's something important, to the degree that it should take priority over other things – when it definitely is not high priority for emergency wilderness survival.

 

[Blue Sky]

There are few things I like more than fishing but in a survival situation it's way down on the list IMO. It's biggest drawback is that it can take a lot of time and there are probably more important things to concentrate on, like shelter, fire, water etc.

When it comes to food, you don't hunt, you set traps and snares. You don't cast or watch floats, you set trot lines or limb lines. Let your skills catch food while you sleep, or do something else important. That's basic bait fishing so all you need are hooks, line and sinkers.

YMMV

 

[DOC-CANADA]

I tried fly fishing once - lot of fun, but it's not something I would rely on in a survival situation. The answer is simple - nets! Learn how to net and you can use it/them to catch fish, birds and critters. They can also be used for carrying stuff and foraging.

Couple of examples to illustrate the versatility:

ETA, the first picture is called a Bubble trap and it normally has a net over the top loop. This one didn't because we were experimenting with the trigger mechanism.

Net making is simple to learn and easy to adapt to many different situations. That's why they were so extensively used by our ancestors.

We're having a one day gathering at the end of this month, and net making is at the top of the list for workshops.

Try it, you'll like it.

Doc

 

[cultivateitnow]

There are few things I like more than fishing but in a survival situation it's way down on the list IMO. It's biggest drawback is that it can take a lot of time and there are probably more important things to concentrate on, like shelter, fire, water etc.

When it comes to food, you don't hunt, you set traps and snares. You don't cast or watch floats, you set trot lines or limb lines. Let your skills catch food while you sleep, or do something else important. That's basic bait fishing so all you need are hooks, line and sinkers.

YMMV

While I agree with some of the point listed they come from a not fly fisherman poin of view. If you were here I would show you. It takes me less then 30 seconds to catch a fish with a fly rod. I could have a mean before the first snare was set.

Do the fire and shelter thing and spend minutes catching food for a couple days.

Another way to think about it is your snares or traps. If I didn't know how my first few snares would be assembled wrong, might not be secure, set to the wrong hight, and would likely be in the wrong location. In short, they wouldn't produce. Having hunting all my life I know a bit about criters. It I'm really good I might be able to set 10 snares and catch 10 citters, vs an good/fair trapper might go 3 for 10.

If you don't know how to fish you might spend minute, hours, or day. You might try using floats and sinkers. To me floats, sinkers, and bait are like setting fish snares. around here we call them trout lines and they are left over night. If I was going to be in an area for a couple days then maybe. Otherwise give me a fly and 2 minutes becuase I like having a full belly.

 

[Blue Sky]

While I agree with some of the point listed they come from a not fly fisherman poin of view. If you were here I would show you. It takes me less then 30 seconds to catch a fish with a fly rod. I could have a mean before the first snare was set.

Do the fire and shelter thing and spend minutes catching food for a couple days.

Another way to think about it is your snares or traps. If I didn't know how my first few snares would be assembled wrong, might not be secure, set to the wrong hight, and would likely be in the wrong location. In short, they wouldn't produce. Having hunting all my life I know a bit about criters. It I'm really good I might be able to set 10 snares and catch 10 citters, vs an good/fair trapper might go 3 for 10.

If you don't know how to fish you might spend minute, hours, or day. You might try using floats and sinkers. To me floats, sinkers, and bait are like setting fish snares. around here we call them trout lines and they are left over night. If I was going to be in an area for a couple days then maybe. Otherwise give me a fly and 2 minutes becuase I like having a full belly.

30 seconds or two minutes? You sure are optimistic, I'll give you that but I've been fishing long enough however to know that's not realistic. You're not going to be stranded at your favorite honey hole or stocked creek are you? Or fishing for trout even? Try catching a catfish on a fly sometime, I'll bet it takes more than 30 seconds. It also means you're packing a fly rod in your survival tin.

Snares and traps are just like fishing or any other skill, they have to be practiced before they're needed. You have to know how and where to set that trap to be successful, just like you have to know how and where to cast that fly.

 

[TimberWolf7.62]

I have a small fishing kit included in my pack, just need to cut a pole. But I agree with Doc-Canada that nets are the way to go, so my pack also includes a net hammock and a net laundry bag. The hammock can be used as a net, obviously, and the laundry bag can carry berries or edible roots or whatever, plus as a net, plus it's a bright orange so it can serve as a signalling device.

I love items that have multiple uses.