Survival UK Forums

Fishing in the UK can be broken down into 3 categories sea, game and coarse. Each categories have there own styles, techniques, baits and tackle.

Reading books about fishing will give you loads of details tackle there are some forms of fishing that "require a tonne of equipment"
and it may require 2 or 3 trips from the car to your chosen spot to fish loaded with tackle.

This is were it becomes a little complicated, you may have some idea of the tackle used for fishing each of these 3 disciplines, but when it comes to "SURVIVAL" fishing its a completely different ball game.

Tell me what you want to know if its how to fish correctly with all the tackle, baits, locations etc or just a simple idea of a couple of outfits to do everything. How to make simple tackle to use, traps, fishing with nets. Fish you can expect to catch

I'd like to know what equipment is required for each area.

Sea fishing for those on the coast. Both boat and shore based.

River fishing for those by a river.

Recommended kit, minimum kit and techniques.

By the time it becomes safe to eat inshore fish (caught within 10 miles of land) due to chemical and organic contamination from flooding caused by rising ground water (3 to 5 years maybe) you'll be able to catch them hand over fist with hand lines and feathered hooks, from piers, jetties and harbour walls due to population growth caused by the absence of commercial fishing. The build up of natural foods along riverbanks will also make netting smaller rivers and streams viable.

Shellfish will probably remain dangerously contaminated for far longer due to their ability to store and concentrate contaminants.

what about fish traps?spearing? netting? putting a line out overnight with several baited hooks on it? dont forget rock pools-shrimps etc!

(8 February 2012, 17:52)bigpaul Wrote: [ -> ]what about fish traps?spearing? netting? putting a line out overnight with several baited hooks on it? dont forget rock pools-shrimps etc!

Can do all that for you BP

just bought a fishing emergency kit for my GHB, line, weights, hooks & lures.

Type of kit needed is dependant on the water you will fish...
Natural livebaits such as maggots , worms , smaller fish can usually be fished anywhere using a run of the mill 8ft telescopic 'spinning rod' ,along with a standard reel.

Anything between 2ib and 6ib breaking strain is good for game fishing for trout and others.
Float fishing - anything buoyant that will indicate that a fish is on , can be used.

If the water is generally shallow ( 2ft or less ) and moving at a medium pace , I would use a simple method of a few lead weights on the line and a small hook , and let the bait move across the bottom of the water with the current.

If the water is shallow but slow moving - I would use a small float with the lead weights this time , distance between float and bait - should be just on the bottom and no more.

If the water is generally deeper ( 4ft or more ) and moving fast I would use a metal spinner such as the 'devon minnow' or the 'toby'.

If the water is generally deeper but slow moving then you are free to use whichever method you can , you have enough depth to use a spinner , and the water is going slow enough to use the float method also.

On lakes / lochs / tarns I would generally use the method more suited to the water depth where you are , shallow , just use a 'fixed line' , deeper - try spinning or float fishing.

Fly fishing is another thing altogether and is NOT an easy method of catching fish.
You must know which flies are getting eaten by the fish ( look around , check what flies are in any cobwebs and choose your nearest matching fly. )

You have 3 methods , dry fly , wet fly and nymphing.
All are different , all take a long time to master.
The kit req'd for each method is also different , diff flies , diff line , diff technique.

practice makes perfect i was reading sd s post about preparing and ironing out any poss problems by doing dry runs...if anyone thinks fishing is a "dangle a hook and pull them in affair " i strongly advise you try the equipment you have bought or made as in a crisis situation you might find it s not as easy as you thought ... also if you think fishing might be one way to increase your food stocks look in mags like angling times and familiarise yourself with local lakes and water ways and poss see what bait the fish respond to... save you lots of time in the future.

One thing to be remembered is overfishing.

With nets , and sometimes even without them , it is very very easy to overfish an area and totally deplete the fish stocks.

During the recent upsurge of Polish migrant workers hitting the UK , the Poles living locally practically cleared a good section of the local canal of fish.

They used nets and ate everything they got their hands on , no matter what size it was. It killed the area as a local hotspot for coarse fishermen and is only now recovering after 2 1/2 years.
It took a crowd of local youths to confront them ( they also fished , but for leisure only ,and also as an excuse to drink lots of beer ) before they moved on , the police also confiscated their nets.

Using nets is very efficient way to catch fish , but an even more efficient way of destroying existing fish stocks.

Well, you know me, always one to buck the trend......SPEAR FISHING!!!!

I've got 5 weeks experience in this, and the only thing I can say is that unless you're directly above the fish, the density of the water will mean your eye will get the distance/angle wrong. You'll be stabbing where you think the fish is, but not where it actually is. It's called refraction. So if you're above water and spear fishing, don't aim where you can see the fish. You'll miss 100% of the time....I promise. You need to aim slightly closer to yourself (in shallow water, at most a couple of inches). Or, wait until the fish is directly below you, which takes refraction out of the equation.