What If... You Go Fishing

Discussion in 'Survival Topic of the Month' started by Dunerunner, May 31, 2019.


  1. Dunerunner

    Dunerunner Brewery Monkey Moderator

    You go fishing in a semi-remote area that is infrequently visited. It is a small stream you are very familiar with and the fishing is generally very good for ½ pound brook trout, 1 to 2 pound rainbow trout and occasionally a 4 pound German brown. The cascading stream is bordered by large granite outcroppings and huge boulders. While jumping onto a large boulder in the middle of the stream to reach a hole you know will produce a fish, you severely sprain your ankle upon landing, nearly falling into the cold rushing runoff waters. You realize that you will not be able to make the jump to the bank with your bad leg that is now starting to swell. The flow of the stream is quite rapid, the water very cold and should you fall into the flow, it could carry you mile down stream before you could crawl out. You have no flotation device. You do have your 6' fiberglass fishing rod and spinning reel, a ripstop creel with a shoulder strap, 4 packages of snelled hooks and two jars of salmon egg bait and a dozen cannon ball split shot, a 10” sheath knife on your hip, a book of matches, a small pair of forceps, a bottle of aspirin and nail clippers. You are wearing a boony style hat, light hiking lace up low cut boots, blue denim jeans and a light polyester and cotton blend button shirt over a cotton “T”. The water is moving at a rate that even without a bad ankle you would have extreme difficulty wading across. There is no cellular service until you are out of the canyon 5 miles down stream. What do you do?
     
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  2. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    Take off your light hiking lace up low cut boots on the injured foot.
    Soak the injury until the swelling goes down and becomes numb.
    While you wait make a Rescue Message from your equipment and indicate your condition and location. Release it to float down stream.
    Refit your now unswollen and numb ankle, tightly bind and support your injury with your rod.
    Take two aspirins and jump back to safe shore.
    Build a fire and wait for help.
    Stay Found.
     
  3. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Start by soaking the sprained ankle in the stream while you calm down and consider the possibilities. Now, I can't understand why you didn't tell someone where you were going and your expected return time, but it is what it is.
     
  4. Alf60

    Alf60 Monkey+++

    Call out to your girl friend over on the bank where she is tidying up the camp and making you a sammich and a cold beer. Tell her she's got to hike out and call for help. Then come back and jump over on the rock to cuddle and keep you warm while you wait for the rescue chopper.
     
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  5. Bishop

    Bishop Monkey+++

    Blue jeans will make a life jacket boonie hat will also help float or you can put the boonie hat on some of the fishing line double up and use it as a way to control your float down stream the cold water would be good for the sprain when you get out you can rip up the cotton shirt and use it with the sneil hooks to hold it in place use the fishing pole to help walk out. Dump the jar of eggs dry it out place your matches and lite shirt in the jar to keep dry place it in the creel do all of this before floating down stream use the split shot to write a note on a rock or tree of what happened and what you are doing and leave it by the spot where you dumped the eggs with the other jar of eggs so any one looking for you will find it because of it sticking out good luck.
     
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  6. DKR

    DKR Raconteur of the first stripe

    Ahhh, use my SPOT GEnX to message for my kiddos to come pick up my broke azz?
     
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  7. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    Intensely express fringes of my lexicography, remove boot and soak ankle in cold water while catching dinner, build fire, cook and eat catch, make comfortable place to wait until a nosey Game Warden stops by to check creel and fishing license.
     
  8. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    Oh yeah, Chances are he's been watching you for at least an hour!
     
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  9. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    Maybe 2.
     
  10. Ura-Ki

    Ura-Ki Grampa Monkey

    Had something like this happen to me, only much worse! Slick rock about 6 feet above the deep water right in the tail out of a pretty good water fall! Took a header into the pool and floated through the tail out until I could get my feet under me! I was only about 300 feet from my truck, but banged up pretty good and bleeding from a nasty gash in my right leg from who knows what! Soaking wet, waders filled up, and rifle completely soaked along with the pistol and all my other gear! My fly vest floats, as do my waders, and my wading boots have felt soles along with a set of crampons strapped on ( Likely how I got the gash to the leg) It's a serious climb back up to the truck and with a bleed that will rip and continue to leak if I don't do something soon, its going to be a long damn day! Cell phone is in a water proof Pelican 1010 case along with other survival gear, small but complete first aid kit in my vest and a good pouch of tobacco along with my soaking wet pipe!

    First thing was to sit down and get the guns propped up to dry out. get a small fire going to try and get dried out as best as I could, call Wife and tell her what happened and that i'm going to be late. pull off waders and get to work on the gash, clean, disinfect and stitch it up! Patch the nasty tear in my waders and turn them inside out to dry along with all my other gear! The Wood around is some what wet, but no matter as I can get a fire going in the middle of a down pour, Lots of smoke! No fish, but I have 1/2 pound of jerky, a few sammich's and lots of gateraid type drink in my camal bak attached to my vest! Other then the cut and intense pain, i'm good!
    Decided to stay over night and get a good start after sun up. I can almost see my pickup so security isn't that big a concern, plus i'm well armed for any predators that may come along!
     
  11. AxesAreBetter

    AxesAreBetter Monkey+++

    I think that entire statement was as alien to me as Mars, aside from the "going fishing" haha. Gonna have to think that one over.
     
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  12. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Fish until the basket is full and the bait is gone and then take my chances with the water after tossing the fish and fishing equipment to safety.
     
  13. 3M-TA3

    3M-TA3 Cold Wet Monkey

    Relax. You had one too many Leinie's and passed out in the kiddie pool again and had another dream about your adventures from when you were single and still had hair. Just sober up until you can tell one of the kid's to have the missus get you another one. You may have to promise her to mow the lawn later or something.

    Fishing holes like that don't exist in real life. If it was real you would never give out the location to anybody even if you needed help or more beer. PM me the GPS coordinates and I'll help to make sure nobody else ever finds out where it is.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2019
  14. 3M-TA3

    3M-TA3 Cold Wet Monkey

    On a more serious note, I'm prone to ankle sprains. When I was a kid and doctors made house calls, my mom badly sprained her ankle. The doc was a friend of my dad's and demonstrated how to tape a sprained ankle using narrow strips of athletic tape. With the toes pointed he started with a strip going up each side of her calf near the heal. The next strip wrapped around her heal the other way going down her foot. Then he applied alternating strips working forward and up making sure her foot was in a walking position.

    The next time I had an ankle sprain my dad gave me the same treatment and to my surprise is was like my foot had never been sprained. It's never let me down and even when it turned out I fractured my ankle stepping in a hole I was able to work the next day (I had a job where I stood or walked 100% of the time). If I plan on backpacking or hunting I usually shave my legs where the tape will go "just in case". A buddy of mine who had a bad foot injury would use that wrap on his foot everytime we went backpacking.

    Here is a picture I found that shows the basket weave, Just start at the back and the bottom alternating directions.The way I do it, the verticle tape goes up a bit further than shown in the inside and even further up on the outside of the leg
    [​IMG]

    I always carry the tape and scissors when I'm on any kind of trail (and always have it in my truck first aid kit), so in the scenario above I'd stick my foot in the water for the swelling, dry, tape my foot, put my sock and boot back on and finish out my fishing trip.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2019
  15. AD1

    AD1 Monkey+++

    Use my Amatuer Radio that you forgot to list. I carry my F8-HP 8 watt when I fish alone. And each day give my itinerary to wife or friends each day.
     
  16. arleigh

    arleigh Goophy monkey

    Don't go fishing alone .
     
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  17. Dunerunner

    Dunerunner Brewery Monkey Moderator

    Thing is, I have and do go fishing alone. Generally when I want to go, my buddies can't or don't want to. For me, in that instance; I don't do anything stupid and do not push beyond my limitations. I'd rather meet my end, if I am dumb enough to let that happen; doing what I love out in nature than sitting in my house or lying in a hospital bed. My eyesight isn't what it was in my 20's, neither is my strength or stamina. Again... Know your limitations and act accordingly. If that means taking the whole neighborhood fishing with you, then do that.

    But the exercise remains... If you were trying to get to that spot where you could get to the eight pound German Brown that just took a terrestrial off the surface and injured yourself doing it, how would you deal with it and get yourself out of trouble?
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2019
  18. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    I'm told the same goes for trips on Bikes.
    Same for me "Generally when I want to go, my buddies can't or don't want to"
    And being transferred by the Mil means pick up and go.

    Just the reasons I take care of business when and how needed.

    Life is short don't go down afraid of taking chances.
     
    Motomom34, Gator 45/70 and Dunerunner like this.
  19. arleigh

    arleigh Goophy monkey

    I take chances ,however
    There is nothing wrong with taking your time using good judgment.
    I did a lot of hair raising things one manned and accomplished them without injury or damage to the equipment .
    I must admit ,I thank God for His intervention in many cases ,in which a wrong calculation could have been a much different story.
    Walking frozen docks and boats and working over the ice and water gets a little hairy ,winds change and gusts can surprise you.
    Rescuing people and equipment barely on top and at the bottom of the lake was a thrill a minuet .
    Jobs in construction and working the ski slopes both in the summer and winter with green crews and operators you had to watch every thing .
    One of the reasons I much preferred to work alone most of the time even if that meant I did more work. which it did.
    When I have been alone in the woods in the high Serras it was different than being at home in the San Bernardino national forest where I spent more time, my sense of direction was much better at home . Fishing is something I do for fun not necessity so there is little anxiety over it , and chances are if you see them , they see you and will not bite if you put a worm in front of their mouth.
    I've done a lot of diving and fish are funny they see you out of the water you pose threat, much like a bear ,raccoon, cat, ect...
    In the water with them you come a curiosity and some fish get right in your face .
    When I fish a brook or never ponds I hike down stream first and then hunt up stream as stealthy as possible ,one pond to the next . If I manage to catch something or disturb the water or branches leading into the water , I move on to the next pond up.
    If I see them I move on because I know they see me.
     
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  20. Wildbilly

    Wildbilly Monkey+++

    Make yourself comfortable and resume fishing, while you're at it soak your ankle and take a few aspirin, and for God's sake don't call for help...lest someone finds the location of your secret fishin' hole! ;)
     
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