Fishing with coke bottles!

Quarterstaff

Quarterstaff

Joined
Dec 14, 2000
Messages
226
really fun. I went out today with my gear and along comes these two guys with 20 ounce plastic coke bottles. Not only did they throw pretty far with them, they caught just as many white trout and croakers as any one else (except of course me, i had huge hooks and big chunks of bait for catching catfish.) Well after giving them some bait i asked them to let me try. Really fun and the ultimate in sensitivity. Anyone else try this method of fishing?
 
Coke bottles?

How do you fish with a coke bottle?
:eek:

(For a minute there I thought you were going to start talking about carbide pellets!)
 
In a survival situation, u can make very effective fish traps out of coke bottles. First u cut out the top part of it, ending up with a funnel. Then, after taking the lid off, invert its original position and push it back (with its neck going in first) inside the botton part of the bottle. Now u have just to fix it there somehow, probably using some kind of thread like dental floss. Put some bait inside and it's ready to use. Obviouslly the size of the fish u will catch will be limited by the bottle neck, but for survival its an excellent method as it's not phisically demanding and it takes only a few minutes to make.:D
 
Originally posted by Ken Cook
Coke bottles?

How do you fish with a coke bottle?
:eek:

(For a minute there I thought you were going to start talking about carbide pellets!)
Click to expand...

There is also a similar method with dry- ice....
But I guess such methods are un- PC, and very frequently illegal.

NILS
 
My family has made traps with the
same shape/principle but out of hardware cloth
for years. They're used to catch
baitfish normally. About the biggest
fish I've ever seen caught would be
hand-size bream. The traps are normally
about 18-30" in diameter and about 30-36"
long. We bait them with bread and then
throw a couple of handfuls of mud around
them which supposedly attracts the bait fish
to come and see what's going on. The inner
opening of the funnel limits the size of fish
that can go in.

We use these in ponds, and usally catch between
2-30 fish in them, depending on trap and conditions.
Would recommend caution when using them in public
waters as they may not be legal in certain areas.

Seines can also be used to catch a fair amount of fish
I quit "seineing" (which normally involves wading out
in the water with one end of the net) after seineing
a 2' foot long cotton-mouth in with my bait fish one
time. I stick to the traps nowadays. A seine might
make a good addition to a larger/long-term survival
pack or BOB kit.
 
<b>"Not only did they throw pretty far with them,"

"Really fun and the ultimate in sensitivity. Anyone else try this method of fishing?"</b>

This sounds to me like the bottle is being used as some sort of "rod" and that there is actually a hook, line, and sinker involved.

Or am I just severely confused?
 
take about 30 feet of fishing line, and tie an end in a non-slip knot around the bottle at the "waist". wind the remaining line around the bottle, adding whatever lure/bait/sinkers/float you want to the free end.

to cast, hold the hook-end line lightly in place with your forefinger and "throw" with an overhand motion, as if you were casting with a pole, ending with the bottle opening pointed at a 45-15 degree angle in the direction of cast.

The hook-end will slip out from under your finger, drawing the line with it. To reel back in, wind the line about the bottle.

Cans also work for this trick.

With a simple lure/hook, you can even drop the sharp end into the bottle/can and toss it in your glove compartment.

A possible survival application of this would be a canister or pipe section of lures/weights/line, Self-contained fishing kit.

(I used an 8" piece of pvc with endcaps as a glovebox fishing kit... see a promising pond, go take a few casts.)
 
Originally posted by Ken Cook

This sounds to me like the bottle is being used as some sort of "rod" and that there is actually a hook, line, and sinker involved.

Or am I just severely confused?
Click to expand...

My comment on lack of political correctness, and possible legal problems, refers solely to the carbide pellet and dry- ice methods....
Sorry.

NILS
 
Ooops, forgot to elaborate. Like parreich said, about 30-40 yards of line (they used 15# mono) is wound around the middle of the coke bottle in the recessed part. The recessed part of the coke bottle acts like the spool on a spinning rod. Towards the bottom of the coke bottle (which you point at where you want to throw) the slight bulge where the skinnier middle expands prevents all of the line from comming out too fast due to the slight friction. The terminal rig they were using was in fact a carolina rig. This is where the line is passed through a egg sinker(they used 1/2 ounce), tied to a snap-swivel and then attached to about 12 inches of leader with the hook at the end. Since the sinker is free to slide you can let the fish run with the bait a little before setting the hook.

Now comes the fun part: This is how they taught me to hurl the weight.
Hold the bottle by its neck in your weak hand in a sabre grip with the bottom pointed towards your target area. You need not extend your hand all the way out. Just point it in the direction you want to throw. With your free hand draw enough line out to swing the weight like a sling. Let loose with a little umph and it'll go flying. The most important part though is to point the bottom of the coke bottle where you are throwing, otherwise the line will just get hung up.
 
Thanks for the clarification guys, this sounds like a neat trick, I'm going to have to give it a try!
:D

NILS,

Worry not about offense, "Fish bombing" is a tactic reserved only for dire emergency. Otherwise it's a reprehensible act of illegal and unethical harvest.
 
we call it jug fishing. a good reason to float down the river at night when they're pulling water, get drunk and watch the coke bottles bob around hoping you don't get a fish....if you do then you have to quit drinking beer to get the fish off the hook.

Jeff
 
Hey Guys.....

The Vietnamese imigrants in our area fish like this All the time...
They do pretty well with it,,and it's a seriously cheap way to fish...

In a survival situation,,a basket of small fish beats waiting for the Big One....

Heres another Very effective way of fishing,,although it takes awhile,,and not really all that good for a survival sit..

Take a large road kill,,like a coon or something and hang it over a pond or slow running stream...

As the fly lay their eggs and they hatch,, the maggots will eat and when full fall into the stream to the awaiting fish below...

This is a constant process,,so the fish will start hanging around where the food is being dropped in...

Once the fish has been customized to this process, all you need to do is find a lure that kind of resembles a maggot,,and you are in business...

We used small bits of electric wire insulation, threaded onto a hook.
In most cases the hook was grabbed just as it hit the water...

This is called Chumming,, and if you aren't in any kind of a hurry,,it's an awesome way to fish,,when you need alot of fish in a short period of time...

ttyle

Eric...
 
I had lost that link when I swithed computers some time ago.

Also I think David Fortier wrote an article about this fishing method in the old ASG.
 
No problem. Aren't those little handlines nifty? If memory serves, I first read about these here. One of the fellows on that ultralight backpacking forum talked about his 'mini tackle box' that he uses with the handline. A few bait hooks, some crimp on split shot and a couple of 'kastmaster' lures (one barb of each treble hook cut off). Kept it all in a Tic-Tac breath mint container.
 
Hey, we used to use the Coke bottle trick when we fished in the Bahamas! But the technique involves holding the bottle and line in the left hand and "cowboy casting" the baited hook. Basically, you would lasso the line as hard as you can (there was a lot of weight approx 1.5' from the hook), release and throw, let your left thumb off the wrapped coke bottle, and voila! a nice long cast. The local Bahamians in Great Inagua showed us this technique. The places for the best fishing had some very rocky areas, so a good cast was important.
 
I think I first saw them at "Equipped to Survive" a couple of years ago. We fished with similar stuff when I was a kid off of docks and caught all the panfish anyone could ask for. I wish I had thought of the Coca-Cola can though as a line winder, it would have saved me a lot of time untangling tangles. My dad used to say that such time spent on untangling fishing line was "character building".;)
 
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