Fishing

Regenerative Subsistence Fauna Food
#1

Anybody here have experience with this? I have experience with harpoons but thats it.

Right now I have a pretty ugly bone hook from a piece of a deer shoulder-blade, and have some raffia cordage that I made. I have a a couple beach rocks with holes bored through for sinkers. When I dig up some bones in my moms back yard (ha!) I should get a bunch more deer-toes to make hooks from, and of course i want to make some cord from foraged materials and not just raffia.

A while back I tried fishing for carp at whitaker ponds with this setup. The carp there are always swimmin just below the surface and occasionally leap out of the water. Nobody fishes for them because the water is polluted but I didnt want to eat one, I just wanted practice. I used worms and bread (the internet says: “probably more carp have been caught using bread than any other bait.” ) and never got a bite. I tried setting the sinker so the bait would be near the surface and near the bottom, but no luck. I saw them swim right next to it but they were not interested. It was mid day, and hot, maybe thats why, I dont know enough about their habits I guess.

Anyway I am goin back to coastal VA where I will have access to a canoe and lots of little waterways and bays as well as the chesapeake bay, lake drummond in the dismal swamp, and the atlantic (Surf-casting primitive doesnt sound like it would work well but what do I know.) I think trying to fish from the canoe would be best but of course I could also make some traps, I am plannin to trap minnow-type fish for bait at least (or maybe for food if I dont catch anything else )

As far as I know, the native people of that area caught lots of fish with fish weir type traps, something I cant do. But they also used regular hook and line angling, the details on it are just not that clear from what I can tell.

Mod edit: changed subject of first post from “fishing with primitive hooks and cordage” to “Fishing” so that all new replies will be labeled more or less generically

#2

Nope I don’t have any experience with aboriginal fishing such as yourself. Other than that, I really enjoyed reading your stories, especially the short about you fishing for practice at Whitaker Ponds! Thanks. Well, seriously, good luck on learning more about these ways of fishing.

#3

Has anyone tried it before?

What are your expiriences?

#4

Has anyone tried it before?

What are your expiriences?

What does one need to know about ice fishing?

#5

I’ve done a little icefishing and there’s not much to know. Cut a hole through the ice and put your line in. Most people use an auger(some are motorized) to cut a hole, but I’ve been known to chop a hole through the ice with an axe.

#6

I’ve managed to catch fish with hooks carved from bone and made of trash. Bone hooks are something I’ve given up on though, they always break. The best hooks I’ve made were fashioned from pop tops.

I’ve never tried a cordage line. It would be hard to get a long, thin, strong strand. If anyone is going to try this out I would recommend a very floppy, springy swatch to attach the line to. This should help absorb the strike, but…, then again, maybe you could do a better job by paying the line out by hand.
I don’t know.

I’d say that primitive traps and nets are way more effective than primitive hook and line.

#7

Best fishing line I’ve been told was horse tail hair, haven’t tried it yet. Don’t know know about plant fibre but I think some folks have used have used dog bane and nettle to make fishing line. Not 100% on this.

For carp try soaking the bread in strawberry soda or some sort of sweet syrup.

#8

What are some good techniques in spear fishing?

#9

Is ice fishing really all that hard as they say it is?

I hear that breaking through frozen ice is half the problem at attempting it where getting to the fish at the bottom of a frozen lake is a chore in itself.

#10

[quote=“Plains”]I’ve only ice fished on a shitty dead Michigan lake. It wasn’t very enjoyable.

I’m not sure how you’d get through the ice without a metal auger. You could use a hatchet maybe if it weren’t too thick. I’d just be scared about starting cracks.

Nevermind. I should have known–Torjus has a wonderful article about it.

One of the items that I am carrying with me will be a hand axe.

Do you think a good axe could break through solid lake ice?

I'm not sure how you'd get through the ice without a metal auger. You could use a hatchet maybe if it weren't too thick. I'd just be scared about starting cracks.

There is always the chance of using a old miner hand pick.

Nevermind. I should have known--Torjus has a wonderful article about it.

http://torjusgaaren.blogspot.com/search?q=ice+fishing

Excellent!

#11

True. I was going to do a combination of spear fishing and netting.

#12

Make a detachable harpoon head for your spear that is tied on to the spear with cordage, this makes it so the fish cant push against the spear to pull itself off the point.

Look for shallow creeks and pools, and fish resting beside rocks. In places with deep water they will just see you coming and go down too deep for you to reach.

Light and time of day are important, morning and evening on sunny days make some serious glare off the water that can make it impossible to see fish from certain angles.

Whitewater makes it so the fish cant see you but it also makes it hard for you to see them. I have not personally had luck spearing by rapids but I know others who have, and grizzly bears seem to like rapids for their fishing.

Patience! Just like hook and line fishing sometimes you have to wait a long time for them to come into range.

Once you spear the fish, if its big don’t try to lift it up out of the water on your spear, pull it to the bank and then pick it up with your hands.

If you hit a fish and the harpoon doesn’t stick in, you may be able to track its blood trail and get it on another strike, or it may swim upstream and die from blood loss and then float back down to you.

Strike from the side not straight down, that way if you miss you are less likely to smash your harpoon tip on the bottom.

I don’t have tons of experience but that should help.

#13

I might know a little something about spearfishing. Where do you live? The size of the fish and your equipment are very important, it can vary from a six foot spear to a fifteen foot sapling.

#14

I want to say TheJoker is/was in the PNW somewhere. I don’t think he’s been around (this forum) for a while now.

question: what’s the smallest size fish worth spear fishing for?

#15

Trout and suckers down to nine inches are worth spearfishing for, under certain conditions. In our world, where fish no longer bite freely due to fishing pressure, spearfishing is much more successful under primitive conditions.

#16

I have gone ice-fishing in Minnesota since I was about 5 years old. I can offer a little advice.

As far as getting through the ice, well, we always used an electric gas-powered auger for that. I can’t help you there, but I can tell you a little about fish.

It really helps to know the lake, live on the lake, know what kind of fish are in the lake, and the habits of different fish species. It also helps, of course, to live in a tribe of people who can learn from each other. I know my dad paid really close attention to where our neighbors set up their fishing holes. :wink:

If you are fishing for walleye pike, know that they feed about 6 inches to 1 foot off the bottom of the lake. You can use a weight on the end of your line to measure to the bottom (you’ll feel it hit), then mark the line at the surface of the water, then adjust the marker accordingly and add a bobber. Walleyes like to hang out and look for food at the “drop offs” in the lake.

In the winter in Minnesota (my experience is limited to that area), a good time to catch walleyes is between 4:30 and 7 pm, as well as early in the morning when the sun is rising. If you build a cozy fish house to stay in for the night, it wouldn’t hurt to leave the line in overnight and check it every few hours (or set up a noisemaker that will wake you when a fish bites, in the style of the Rattle Reel).

Most species of fish feed when the sun is low on the horizon, be it dawn or dusk. This is especially true for winter fishing.

Fish don’t feed in random spots. They go back to the same place every day. If you catch a fish or get a bite, keep going back to that area of the lake. Eventually you could hone in on a prime feeding spot.

I have also fished for sunfish and crappies in the winter. However, it has been a long time (not since I was about 11 years old) as my parents moved to a different lake when I was 11 and consequently my dad started fishing exclusively for walleyes. I don’t know/remember the feeding patterns of those fish, I just remember catching a ton of them, and that they taste really good fried. I would guess that they don’t feed quite as close to the floor of the lake (my experiences in summer fishing are educating that guess).

With walleye, you could definitely fry them, or you could try baking them (in a pit with rocks heated in fire? I don’t know…)

If you catch any sunfish, when you filet them you can leave the skin on (scrape the scales off) and fry them for breakfast. Yummm…

#17

A topic on fishing and fish preparation tips! (Summer fishing, ice/spear fishing, fly fishing, ocean fish… )

Brought to you by a quintessential Pisces.

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#18

I found an excellent website on cleaning fish.

I might add that some species are more complicated to filet than others (in terms of steps involved), mainly due to bone structure. The species, and method of cleaning, featured in this website looks pretty complicated. A lot of little bones in that sucker.

There are some GREAT tips here, like: how to kill the fish immediately after catching it in the quickest way possible (improves the taste and quality, too); how to bleed a fish; what to do with the fish “remains” after filleting (cooking the head, making soup, etc.); and also includes the TRULY easiest method of removing the skin from the fillets.

I recommend reading “After You Catch a Fish” in addition to the Fillet steps.

It also features advice on setting up a fish cleaning station.

#19

Does anyone mind if I pull in a couple of other fishing-related threads and merge them w/ this one?

I know there’s at least one in Tracking/Awareness but I think it makes the most sense to have them all in one thread in Fauna Food.

Any thoughts?

#20

sounds reasonable to me