Check out this video from Tom McElroy.

The video explains how to weave a fish trap (or any basket) and then shows it catching fish with a GoPro. Great survival knowledge!

We can weave fish traps using natural materials, including plant fibers and animal pelts. Fish traps are one of the oldest methods of fishing known to humankind. While modern fishing methods have replaced the practice of using traps, many people worldwide use fish traps as a primary method to catch fish.

Do you Want Passive Income? Because You Might Want to Do This Instead

Ok, sorry, this is a joke of sorts because we aren’t talking about income at all; we are talking about FISH! However, all the gurus of the world would lose their minds if they knew you could skip the money part and directly AND PASSIVELY produce resources.

Excellent planning and any decent amount of execution can put you on a fast track to the wilderness equivalent of a passive income. Now I don’t know how much you know about passive income. But no payment is actually passive. Most people say that, and it means you put in a ton of work upfront, and then you reap the benefits for what seems like much longer than you should.

If the gurus were doing their thing and YouTube was around a few hundred to several thousand years ago, they would be talking about farming, fish trapping, orchards, ranching, and any method otherwise domesticating plants or animals similarly. Fanciful, I know, but someone had to see the value and promote new techniques to our ancestors in the past just like people do now.

“You don’t have to spend hours walking around the bush looking for your daily berries and fruit.” They would very excitedly say, “It’s amazing! We can grow/catch everything we need right here!”

Using a fish trap is on the same level, instead of sitting in the water for hours on end, hoping you catch something that will sustain you and your family. You, instead, can set the trap and walk away to tend to other things.

You spend 4-6 hours upfront weaving a basket, and with care and maintenance, it will last for seasons and potentially for a lifetime.

In my opinion, this is the ultimate survival tip. Once you weave your trap, you can put it on running water or streams and catch the food you need.

How to Quit Fishing and Start Catching. Because It’s Easier

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the why. Let’s get down to how to make this thing go!

Start by grabbing some weaving materials if you are following along with the video I attached to this post, then you can start with some willow shoots. These are very straight and easy to bend.

Tom doesn’t soak his willows before starting, but I recommend doing so, even going so far as to work underwater, depending on the material you choose. Here is another video I recommend watching to understand the concept better. You are weaving a basket that comes out much further than a regular basket or “bowl” shape until you make a funnel.

It might take a few tries to get it right, and I might make a video explaining the concepts behind weaving.

For me, it took me several times to get things right. Weaving in new extensions, making my gaps the right thickness, and getting the point to the right size took all of the 4-6 hours I mentioned above. I suspect the last basket I made only took about 1.5 hours, and most of the time was spent figuring out ways to make it all work.

The Top Four Things You Need to Know Before You Change Your Tactics

Overall this is a new tactic you can use in your overall bag of tactics when forming your strategies for staying alive and well-feed. Most survival knowledge is best served by knowing the basics, and basket-making, fish-trap making, and leading into net-making are all basic skills you should work on developing!

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