Do you need to carry fishing tackle and pole in your survival kit? If you are skilled enough, you can make your own tackle, and a pole can be virtually anything on which you can attach a line. However, why go through all the trouble of making your own when you can carry a small kit, and finally ask yourself, do you really need to fish in most survival situations.
Fishing tackle doesn’t take up much room and you can put your own tackle kit together, and make it small enough to fit in your coat pocket, so why not have one in your pack regardless of your outdoor adventure.
If you get lost hiking or hunting, your objective is to survive until you are rescued or until you can find your way back. Usually, however, a lost hiker or hunter does not stumble upon the correct path back home, after all, they are lost, and so they are usually found by professional searchers, police or others that happen to be in the area after a few days of searching. There are extreme cases where someone is lost for a number of days or even weeks in some rare instances.
Of course, if you have no friends, family or anyone that knows you are missing or cares that you are missing, you would never be reported missing, which is very rare by the way. Therefore, you can expect to be wandering around for a few days until a search and rescue are mounted. You, of course, should shelter in place to make it easier for rescuers to find you, but not many seem to pay this simple piece of advice much mind.
Back to the question, do you need fishing tackle, do you want it, and do you have the skill to fish, and will you be out in the wilderness long enough to need to fish?
Desperation can lead to innovation, and so even if you don’t have any gear with you, you could find what you need. If there are waterways for fishing then there will be saplings, limbs and other forest debris that can be used, but again why not carry a small kit, just in case.
If you are lost and it’s been over 24 hours since you last ate it may feel like you are starving, and a nice grilled trout would go a long ways in soothing your rattled nerves. If you are sheltering in place and there is a river, creek or lake close by and you have tackle then there is no reason not to fish that is if you have the means to create a fire.
If you thought ahead enough to bring tackle then it is likely fire starting material is in your pack as well. Of course, it could be raining or had rained and the wood and dried grasses are wet and damp. You can’t eat fish raw, so first things first, a shelter, fire and then food.
If you are trying to hike out of your predicament despite the odds of finding your way back, you may not have time to stop and make a fire, and then sit by the river bank for a few hours, or you may not want to take the time. If you were willing to take the time, then it might have been better to have stayed put in the first place.
For those of you who may live in an urban area, parks and other public venues may have ponds or man-made lakes that may be stocked with fish. If the SHTF and you cannot bug-out of the urban area, fishing may be a viable way of obtaining food.
There really is not a downside to carrying fishing tackle. Some of you may be envisioning a large tackle box, but this does not need to be the case. A few hooks, lures, spoons and some fake bait along with some line is all you need to start with.