How to make a fish hook?

Question

I am in a survival situation and need to make a supply of fish hooks. What are my best options. I have a knife and in my travels I have noticed much native vegetation as well as a couple of animal skeletons.

Answer 1

You have two basic options:

1. You can carve a hook with or without a barb from wood or bone.

Some examples of the finished product are here¹:

2. You can splice two pieces of material together for an improvised hook. This is probably the easiest way to make a treble hook and/or a hook for snagging fish. I personally think this is the way to go because it feels like it will allow me to make mistakes without having to trash everything. Plus it is more repairable.

Here is an example²:

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You can use your favorite search engine to find more resources using the key words native fish hook. Below are two YouTube videos I found that might be interesting:

Bone hook/carving video

Spliced wood hook video

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^{1: Image from here: http://www.honolulumagazine.com/core/pagetools.php?pageid=7161&url=%2FHonolulu-Magazine%2FMarch-2004%2FMakau-Hawaiian-Fishhooks%2F&mode=print}

^{2: Image from here: http://www.siskiyous.edu/shasta/nat/mod/sub.htm}