It’s not unusual for many people to bring their fishing rods with them when they go out into the wild. Sadly, you’re going to have a tough time if those rods break or go missing. If either of those things happens, though, what are your options? here you will learn how to make a fishing rod in the wild like cowboys
One thing you can do is make a new fishing rod in the wild with nothing more than a pocket knife and some ingenuity.
All you’ll need is to find a 6- or 7-foot long tree branch that’s at least as thick as your thumb. With that, you can cut it to your preferred length and be ready to fish in no time!
Learning how to make a bushcraft fishing rod isn’t just useful as a backup if your poles go missing. It’s also a great survival skill to develop if you ever find yourself in a position where you have to fish to survive.
Cutting Your Tree Branch
Once you’ve found a usable tree branch, you’ll need to make it useful as a primitive fishing pole. That includes taking your pocket knife and cutting away side branches, shoots and leaves.
That’ll make the branch useful as a pole since there’ll be nothing in the way.
Remember: Be very careful not to hurt yourself when you’re using your pocket knife.
A timeless tip about handling such knives is that you should always cut away from your body, rather than towards you. That way, if you ever slip, your knife will just go forward.
Then, as mentioned before, you’ll want to cut the branch to the right length to suit your needs. Longer or shorter, that’s entirely up to you. Still, a standard length would be approximately 6 or 7 feet in length.
Testing The Tip
You’ll need a strong tip if you’re going to use that branch to pull up any fish you catch. Bend the tip with your hand until it breaks. You might be concerned about how easily it broke, but don’t worry.
Whatever part breaks off is the softer end of the rod, so the new tip (i.e. whatever’s left) is sure to be much stronger than the last.
Line and Hook
Of course, a fishing rod made in the wild would be useless without accessories like a line and a hook. If you’ve still got some spare fishing line and a couple of hooks with you, then great! If not, you’ll need to do a little extra work to make your survival fishing rod usable.
You can use vines to serve as a fishing line. Be sure to choose only the toughest ones you can find, though, as you’ll need that strength to pull in any fish you catch.
For the hook, you’ll need to do a little more carving. Find a stick that you can carve into a V-shape. You’ll need to use your pocket knife to make it as sharp as possible on the hook end.
Practice Makes Perfect!
When you’re learning how to make a primitive fishing pole, remember that it’s alright to make mistakes. You might not get it right the first few times, but after a bit of practice, you’ll know what works and what doesn’t.
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