Today I’m going to show you how to make a primitive hunting/fishing spear. In order to make it you are going to need a long straight sapling, the diameter that you use will depend on the size of the fish or game you are going after. I am making this one bigger for demonstration purposes it’s about 1 1/2 inches. You are also going to want to use green wood for this, anything dried will likely break when you go to split it. Once you have your sapling take about 4 arms lengths of cordage and make a loop on one end about 2 inches long. I’m using jute twine.
Next place the loop about 15-18 inches down on the end of the sapling that you are going to split like the picture below.
Now start to wrap the cordage over the loop as tight as possible. When you have about an inch and a half wrapped, pass the cord through the loop and the pull the bottom end of the loop, this should keep it tight enough for now.
The reason we are wrapping cord around the sapling is to prevent the wood from splitting further than we need it to. Leave the remaining cordage you will need it to finish wrapping it later. Next take your knife and split the sapling down the middle, being careful to keep it in the center. Split it down to about an inch above the cordage you just wrapped. You can use a large stick to drive your knife down the sapling by hitting the top of the blade.
Now make another split, this time it should be perpendicular to the first split. This will divide the end of the sapling into four even sections. It should look like the picture below.
Next find two twigs and slide them one at a time as close to the lashing as possible like the pictures below. I used longer twigs, it makes it easier to slide them down and then trimmed them off later.
Now take the remaining cordage and lash the twigs securely into place. You can now trim the twigs with a knife or use your multi tool saw.
Now sharpen each prong with your knife.
When you are finished it should look like this.
