Fishing For Food

Just went fishing with family. We live at a lake so if the fish bite, we should have a food source. Today's catch was one tiny blue gill. We will starve if that is all we get if SHTF.

 

You seem to be thinking of "survival fishing" the same as you do sport fishing. They are completely different. Just like commercial fishing is different than sport fishing. If you have a lake with a healthy fish population and there is no worry of the lake freezing out, you have a food source. You can learn to gill net, trot line fishing, cast net, bank lines, jug fishing, electroshock and possibly small scale aquaculture if you own shoreline. Depending on location you can also branch out to crayfish, frogs, turtles, etc.

You might also want to learn ways to preserve your catch, besides freezing so you can take advantage of times of plenty to get you through lean times.



Dale

 

Here is an idea, put some native fishes (whatever species as long is not invasive species) unto the lake and let them breed naturally. IF SHTF ever come there at least you already have a viable food source

 

I almost never go fishing and not catch enough for a meal. I could survive with just my cast net if I had to. those little fish have as many calories per pound as bigger fish. Also, the difference between sport fishing and survival fishing is like sport hunting and survival hunting. when you throw out the rules it gets pretty easy to find a meal. For one thing, you are always better off to start out nearer the bottom of the food chain. Also, throw out the idea that there are no fish that you can't eat. I could easily live on Gars alone in East Texas rivers, creeks, and lakes.

If it is illegal then THAT is what you want to do. The reason for most game laws are strictly to reduce and limit the catching of the fish. I can feed my family with a couple of hours a day on the water. When people thin out it will be even easier. Probably a couple of trotlines and a little time catching bait will feed us. Even little stock ponds can offer a huge source of easy fish to eat. As mentioned above learning how to preserve your catch will be more important and time-consuming than finding and catching the fish.

 

You should fishing out in the open sea, where the fishes are large enough. Where I live even fishing by the pier side you might end up with 50lbs fish

 

I called that gross mismanagement on the host country. IUU Fishing can only be dealt with political willingness at national level, once its been done the fish stock will recover.

BTW did you know that HRH Prince of Wales send delegation to my side of the pond to learn how we here EFFECTIVELY dealt with IUU Fishing, in the hope to restore British fishing stock?

 

I was raised and lived near the coast for most of my life. I do miss the great saltwater fishing that we had but I don't miss the air pollution, humidity, or Hurricanes very much. Where I live now we have a huge lake and the river right here and all sorts of smaller bodies of water. I fish almost every Friday and we don't even put fish in the freezer anymore. I like it fresh and we usually bring home up to 25 pounds of boneless fillets most of which I let my fishing partner have for his family. I DO miss the redfish, speckled trout, flounder, and sharks but if you downscale your tackle a big catfish and largemouth bass are fun. If I want a tussle we have gar that are up to 7 feet long and 4 footers are easy to find.

 

And what those will be?! Its already worldwide SHTF today with this Great Plague. And so far fishing activity remain roughly the same. Those who make living from the sea are less affected by this Great Plague

 

In the absence of current laws and fisheries regulations, methods like gill netting, explosives, rotenone, traps, electricity, etc. for fresh water fishing will be the new norm. Ocean fishing methods won't change much. Unflagged long liners and drift netting are already wiping out fish populations. Our absence would be a blessing for fisheries and wildlife. With far fewer humans the wild creatures and feral domestic stock would populate the earth. A professor told me something my junior year of college that has stuck with me. He said, "Wildlife management has nothing to do with actually managing wildlife. It has everything to do with managing humans. We must be managed for wildlife to survive." He was right.

Dale

 

Chinese fishermen cutting to the chase:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...t-catch-water-turning-tourist-attraction.html

I like what happens to these fishermen ...

 

I guess it is dependent on where you live. Unless I will be trying to feed an army I can feed my family without going to extreme measures like explosives or rotenone to generally catch a half dozen fish. The advantage of simple fishing is that by not wiping out the fish in mass you can depend on a good spot for a regular supply of meals. I don't need 50 fish to have dinner and with the heat that is typical here, the fish are hard to store without refrigeration.

For long term storage of fish, you are going to need a lot of salt and lots of dry low-level controlled heat. If you can depend on a lot of hot sunshine you can use that but it won't work and your fish will rot if clouds stop the process before it is finished. Fish rot fast and where I live most of the year locally heavy afternoon thunderstorms are very common year-round. There will be no weather report and about all that you will know is from looking at the sky. For that reason, I will have a smoker set up and ready at all times so that whatever I kill that I can't eat almost immediately can be smoked. If possible I will soak it in salt water for a while first. If you can pack the flesh in salt the salt will draw the moisture from the meat. A combination of salt and smoke/heat cure works well.

When you live in a place that doesn't have much cold in the winter the animals don't tend to carry a lot of fat to get them through the winter. You can literally starve to DEATH eating nothing but rabbits. They have no fat at all. Most of our deer don't carry a lot of fat. Spead is more important to their survival that fat storage.

There is NO day of the year that the temperatures might not hit 90 degrees F. that isn't normal in January through March but it has happened. You just can't depend on it not getting above 40 on ANY day much less go several days. Food storage requires the temperatures to be kept at a constant temperature either above 140F or below 40F anything in between allows bacterial growth and the possibility of food poisoning. I spent much of my time for about 25 years working in Restaurants making sure that all of their equipment maintained these temperatures. A steam table that is not running high enough can be deadly!

You need to know how to handle food without refrigeration. I can assure you that in the first months after the power goes off the deaths from food poisoning are going to start to climb. As peoples canned and dried food stores begin to peter out they are going to start having to handle foods in a raw state and food poisoning is going to be a HUGE killer. You need to NOW begin to learn about all of the important things that your Great Grandparents knew about this that are LOST now. you need to do this now while you have the internet. Read and PRINT all that you can. Get a meat smoker now and learn how to use it. A pressure cooker and a load of canning jars will be like they are made of GOLD for long term food storage. Even things like a hand run meat grinder and grain mill will allow you to do a lot of things like make and stuff sausage or turn field corn into a more eatable thing.

I know that I wandered but fish will be a big part of my protean and if you can't store it you are living hand to mouth. There are not many days that I couldn't catch a meal IF I can go fishing but only a fool fishies in a hurricane and some of those locally heavy afternoon thunderstorms as not much weaker. Remember NO weather forecasts and you will never know if that cloud is a thunderstorm of the leading edge of a hurricane. We also do have some cold days in the winter and we are in general ill-prepared to handle that sort of cold and can only stay in and hide from it. For those days I will need to have stored food. Just catching the fish isn't enough.

 

Good morning TexDanm,

Since msf.com encourages newbes to join us in the prep life, ...

do consider to modify "no fish that you catch...".

The basic verbotten models are sea creatures that can balloon up. For non-nutrition reasons, some sea creatures like the barracuda are just dangerous to catch with a low ROI - Return On Investment. You can catch one of these things, throw it on ice and 8 hours later Exacto-razor blade knives are gashing all over the raft/boat.

 

In the freshwater and nearly all of our coastal waters there is no great number of fish that are not eatable. Some are much better tasting than others but very few will poison you. If you catch something that you can't identify you need to run it through the various tests to verify that it is safe to eat. If you touch it to the inside of your arm and it creates a rash don't eat it. Taste and then spit out and if you feel any sort of numbness or reaction to it them don't eat it. When you first try any new unknown food of any kind try it in very small amounts and wait a day or two before trying it again. If you have any bad reaction never eat it again.

I have never caught a barracuda or eaten one but i always have an open mind. Sharks are a lot more toothy than a Baracuda but are nonetheless good eating if you know how to handle them and cook them. The same is true of the freshwater Aligator gar. I was raised in Cajun Country and have eaten a lot of different things from the water. I love mudbugs (Crayfish) they are just midget lobsters and good eating. If a Cajun catches it, it will be on the table later with very few exceptions and I have never tried any of it and not liked it. The pufferfish that you mentioned while indeed poisonous if served without proper preparation is considered a high delicacy in oriental restaurants of the top level. If improperly prepared it will paralyze your ability to breathe and you could suffocate. It can only be served by highly trained and specially licensed chefs. I suspect that places that serve it over there have the medical people and an ambulance on their speed dial.

Many fish are judged not to be good to eat in certain areas. Just because people say it doesn't make it true. Carp, where I live, is considered a trash fish and uneatable.This is not true at all and in many places around the world they are THE fish TO eat. Some people think catfish are no good to eat. Some fish are better eating than others but in a survival situation, you may find that it is eat or starve. Especially in the US, we eat VERY well and only eat the best-tasting plants and animals... in our opinion and the best parts of these animals and plants. If you want an education you need to find out what the poorest people in your part of the world eat and give it a try. The poor can't be picky.

Actually and no offense meant or intended a lot of what is eaten in even Europe is considered extremely distasteful here as I am sure what we eat is pretty strange and a bit disgusting to you. In general, we don't eat the internal parts of most animals here. Where I live we eat cattle, pigs, and chickens. The Hispanic influence here has added goats to that list. I have never tasted any form of sheep and a Texan does not eat a horse. It is all about where you are raised.

I have never eaten a kidney or any other of the nonmeat parts of an animal with the lone exception of liver (I was FORCED to put it in my mouth and don't like it) and chicken gizzards. I know that all of this is just social programming. I may not eat things like this and many other things by preference but I have eaten almost anything that wouldn't poison me and will do so at any point where it is necessary. Some things were surprisingly tasty like roasted grasshoppers.

Fish, game and wild-harvested vegetables and fruits are to be always carefully tested unless you KNOW them and whether they are safe to eat and how to make them safe to eat if not. There are actually a lot of poisonous things that people eat and many don't even know that unless prepared properly are not good for you all the way to deadly in some cases. Have you ever heard of raw cashews being in with the other raw nuts? You won't it is poisonous. Many plants and creatures that are either poisonous or can sting you actually make good eating. Stinging nettles, rattlesnakes, and scorpions jump to mind. If you are not SURE then test it thoroughly before making a big meal of it.

 

My mom's dad was a subsistence hunter / fisherman until he was forced (economic reasons) into living in a small town where his dad had moved. He taught me how to hunt and fish.

The fishing behavior did NOT stick. I have no aversion to it, but I fished with Pap because he was my pap.

Were I forced to fish due to some SHTF whatever, I'd use trot-lines. Pap never used trot-lines. But, that's what I'd do. I'd not leave them. I'd watch the lines I put out. SHTF would bring out the interlopers. Mess with my trot lines and I'd put heavy subsonics in their heads. Post SHTF, I would just never be in a good mood. Plinking is fun.

I have fishing gear ... maybe. Maybe it is rusted away in storage.

When a boy, I just killed things, small animals and birds. I could readily go back to that. Not fishing though; doesn't come readily to my mind at all. I don't like fishing.
.

 

Like others here I've heard people refer to some fish in my area as trash fish. I don't believe there is such a thing. Even the fish that I don't like to eat are very useful. I don't like to eat carp or suckers, but they make great garden fertilizer and I take some , put them in clear glass jars in the summer time and let them rot down into fish oil and fish juice. The oil floats to the top and is an excellent trap lure/bait for many species. I've caught many a mink, fox and bobcat on fish oil. I take the fish juice and spread it on the garden as a excellent fertilizer. The fish might not feed me directly but the tomato's, corn, etc. from the garden will. The smell goes away in several days.

Another way of ensuring that you have a supply of fresh fish (location dependent) is to build yourself some fish pens (sunken or floating) and put the extra catch of the day in them (alive of course) so you can net them out when the fish aren't biting or present. If your afraid other people may find your pens then camo them with aquatic vegetation or make pens that sit on the bottom and can be lifted up as needed. Even something as simple as old laundry baskets can be used like this. You can also keep crayfish and turtles this way.

One other thing to remember about fish is that the higher up on the food chain that the species is, the more likely it is to have heavy metals built up in it's body. The term for this is biomagnification. Many rivers and streams have currently recommended limits of different fishes that you can eat from that body of water due to pollution somewhere on the waterway. Check with your states fisheries or environmental protection agency for you area. Just a recommendation.

Dale

 

Good morning TaxDanm,

I have to accept that I did not write my post clearly and probably misread something you wrote.

Had thought you said what can be caught can be consumed.

Since our readership is not exclusive to the near offshore waters of Little Diomede Island or the Texas lake country, was concerned that a newbe - or even others - would be placed at risk.

In my experience, a relatively large barracuda is the more dangerous situation to retrieve than even a short fin Mako shark.

Serving puffer fish - or even shark fin soup - nowadays at an exclusive restaurant, unless a private club, in China will get the authorities arriving well prior to the medical folks.

Here around the Chesapeake Bay, many fish periodically are loaded with industrial and agricultural chemicals. My guess is that a TEOTW environment could have many fishing areas contaminated with industrial chemicals. Currently, the USN and USCG have stringent anti-pollution controls (less an incident at Weapons Station Yorktown last month). If hades breaks loose, I wouldn't retrieve any nets from these waters.

To close, I'll leave the Europeans with my share of eel and the Japanese with our vanishing whales.

I am now in the mood for some garlic spinach.

 

When s.h.t.f. I expect a lot of people to be fishing for their existence . Fish may be depleted to the point of being hard to obtain . Those that are not properly prepared will find this is not enough for survival and them and those that depend on them will be dead within a few months . After the die off fishing will gradually become more productive . -- Now this dark prediction will not apply everywhere . For example my primary fish source is a stream that I share with another survival group . They are on one side of the stream and my group are on the other side . I don't expect either of the two survival groups to have a die off . Then fortunately neither their group or my group will be depending on fish as their only renewable resource .

 

Another simpler rule of thumb is, if the fish share its name with any kind of naval weapon than its mean the fish is more troublesome as food

 

Good afternoon Varuna,

Very good !

I will now avoid fishing for and dining on Armored Catfish (Amazon River area).

 

I don't think that there will be all that many people that will be able to live off of fishing. The people that fish once or twice a year will have a hard time because they will all be going to the same places. The easy to get to places that have people there every weekend now will be where they will go and those areas are already fished out. Depending on what exactly happens they may be limited to only places that they can walk to. Gas will become a rare and valuable item REAL fast. I live surrounded by places to fish. There are several creeks, a big river, and too many ponds and small lakes to count.

There is also more in and around the water to eat than just the fish. I will eat almost anything and any fishing tip will include a couple of guns. Exactly which guns will depend on where I am going and what time of year it is. If nothing else we have thousands of cattle around here and millions of hogs both domestic and feral. I have grabbed a hog several times while fishing and seen a lot more including deer and ducks. Duck hunting is big here. I am NOT fond of ducks but will eat them in hard times.

If you are fishing for FISH it is not too hard to catch enough to feed four people or so. For one thing, when food is short you do not fry or grill them they go in a pot with other things. this isn't my favorite way to cook fish but it allows you to get 100% of the available nutrition. A cheap pellet or BB gun can go along and you can add some small birds to the pot easily. A LOT of people are going to starve to death because they have the idea that there are only certain fish and certain birds etc that are good to eat.

I am with you Old Geezer, If I am feeding a crowd you can't beat trotlines they will fish all night for you and when they produce they will put a LOT of fish on the table. For a few people though I like limb and throw lines which are basically just trotlines on;y attached to the shore on one end. They don't require a boat to run them. I also like jug fishing. There are also spring-loaded things called yoyos that are effecting for smaller fish under about 10 pounds and spring snare set lines that will hook and snatch the fish out of the water for you unless it is a monster.

 

Is it only the 5 states of the Chesapeake Bay ?

If COG - Continuity Of Government - is lost, then besides protected species available for dining............so, too, will medical waste enter the US waters. Add the funeral homes. Add the damaged sewer systems 200 miles higher away. The waters are somewhat unhealthy in this environment.

Like Lonewolf said, more than 1 source of food is needed. Seafood is out unless canned and already in the shack's inventory.

We've got polluted water already after hurricanes. A Hades situation pending.

Pass the canned biscuits, please.

 

Then get your fishes from beyond the 24nm contiguous line (off shore) rarely does any terrestrial originated pollution reaching the continental shelf or beyond. Even if its did it will be so diluted with only trace amount.

 

Good morning Varuna,

Not familiar with 24nm contiguous lines as they relate to offshore. The US uses a combination of what Indonesia and China uses.

Goint 24nm in territorial or international waters requires a crew-served sturdy vessel with security apparatus.

Some pollution is not of terrestrial origin.

 

There is a good book called Flatheads and Spooneys. Its about market fishing on the Mississippi and its tributaries. There is info on slat traps, setlines, trotlines, gillnets, netting, etc. Might be a good read if the info applies to a person's location.

 

I was raised in one of the most polluted places in the US. You could tell the wind direction from the smell of the air. SERIOUSLY! The list of chemical refineries is much too long to list and then you went to the paper mills and the mess that oil well created at that time. I can remember when there were parts of East Texas where you could drive at night without your lights on because of all the oil wells that were flaring off natural gas from the tops of the thousands of derricks. East Texas floated on oil and was one of THE major suppliers of oil back then and why transport oil to somewhere else to refine it. When you have pulled the useful things out of the oil and natural gas you had "leftovers" and they either released them into the air, dumps them into the rivers, or buried them in the swamps. The results were a high rate of cancer, constant sinus issues, reduced immune system strength from the constant bombardment of pollutants. Both of my parents and many of my friend's parents died from cancer.

The fact is that people are amazingly resilient and adaptable. We lived well. The good side of all of that pollution was that we had lots of GREAT Paying jobs. The oil industry was like a gold mine for the people that lived there. Eventually, the government required the polluters to find better ways to do things and clean up the mess that they had made. The rivers ran clear and the air was once again breathable. The oil industry went BUST when the Federal Government decided that they wanted to serve the wishes of the Middle Eastern oil nations and they shut us down. The economy collapsed.

Now the city that I grew up in is a filthy piss hole with a murder rate that is one of the highest in the nation. The public schools have become little more than storage places for delinquents and the city is run by corrupt criminals that nonetheless are reelected over and over because the decent people that used to occupy that city have fled. There are in this world many kinds of pollution. Chemical was bad BUT it wasn't nearly as bad as the anaman (human-animal) pollution that has taken the place of the chemical pollution.

In the post-apocalyptic world, the pollutants will possibly be released and there will be some problems. You can tell what is not fit to eat. If it smells ok and tastes ok then in the short term it is probably going to be ok. The human sense of taste and smell are wonderful chemical detecters. I'm sorry but after the fall people are not going to live as long as they do now. There are so many things that people have forgotten about that killed so many in the past that are going to return to us. You will have to pick and choose your threats and even in the midst of pollution, I can assure you that there will be many much more immediate threats. Any small cut can become infected. Any infection may become a killer. Men used to grow beards. One of the reasons was that shaving knicks on the face out in the backcountry once infected were LETHAL!

What has happened in our civilized world is that as we defeated the killers they were replaced by the next most problematic problem. There are no animals that are much of a REAL threat, most of the REAL pandemic diseases were wiped out. Nobody dies of smallpox, yellow fever, or pneumonia in the prime of life now. So it is always NEXT killer up. Understand that the things that we are taught are deadly now are mostly by the standards of the past little more deadly than the common cold which by the way killed my grandfather. It turned to pneumonia and he was dead at the age of thirty-Five. He foolishly refereed a bi-district high school football game in the rain. The coronavirus that we are hiding from is a joke when compared to the REAL pandemics of the past that killed up to 50% of all the people in an infected area or in the case of smallpox in North America wiped out entire nations of the Native people that were here when we came and infected them.

In the post-apocalyptic world you will need to rearrange your fears or they will EAT you up. On the other side, you will need to relearn old fears. without antibiotics and medical care, a cold ignored may be a killer. A shaving knick or so many other things that we think little of now may be the big thing that gets you. In the end, pollution that doesn't kill all of the fish and animals that are drinking the water will probably not be a threat that you need to spend a lot of time worrying about as long as the taste and smell are ok. I survived it as did most of my contemporaries. Cancer seemed to be more common among the people that were not raised in the pollution.