Strangest Hunting Method

Never have done the dynamite in the water ...but who knows, it may come one day....

My brother-in-law has an old crank phone, and when we go to the rivers around here, he sometimes will bring that old thing along...

crimps some long leads into the water, and then you give that thing about 4 turns on the crank, and tha catfish come up to the top as floaters...ya just go & get 'em..

Noteworthy - always, and I mean ALWAYS, be standing on some big 'ol rocks when you start cranking away...unless you like to feel a good jolt every now & then with some buzzing in your head

Some of the cray fishermen in South Australia would send a couple of their own to Swan Reach on the Murray River in "tinnies" and use battery operated, high voltage, dc electrodes to kill the European Carp that have infested a lot of our inland waters and are a National pest that need eradicating.

They use them as cray bait, because I reckon that the only thing that will eat them is crays.

I understand where you are coming from, and although I like catching carp, I am not fond of eating them either.....

The UK has problems (Germany too) with USA Crayfish killing off the local ones (tit for tat?) I am reliably informed......we are not allowed to take the European Crayfish away, but any number of the US variety is allowed!!!

Also, the UK has some problems with a certain type of fish that is naturally available in both European and USA waters, that was introduced in the 50s and wreaks havoc with young stock. The name escapes me at this time....

Yep, the introduction of foreign fauna and flora into other countries has usually meant problems and sometimes HUGE problems.

In Australia, without thinking too much about it, we have had the European Carp, cane toads and of course rabbits. I'm not sure, but I think camels are causing problems in some parts of Australia.

Long ago I was invited to a tropical paradise to take part in what was called "not a war".

Anyway, to make a long story short, in the occasional idle moments we had we would sometimes go hunting in the foothills about 60 miles northwest of the capitol city.

The prey: usually mule deer.

The weapon: one or more of the M-60 machine guns mounted on my CH-47 Chinook helicopter, or any one of several personal weapons, which may have included .38 pistols, M-16's, or my personal favorite, an M-79 grenade launched.

Believe it or not there were no innocent animals harmed in the making of this tale. Those deer were fast and could easily out maneuver the Chinook no matter how hard we tried.

Strangely, hunting never appealed to me much after my return from this 18 month vacation. If it doesn't shoot back, it's boring.

Well, you did not say who should hunt whom, so here it goes..

In the Amazon there is a small fish, which likes to lodge itself into the gills of larger fish and live there as a parasite, basically. It locates its target by the smell of ammonia. There were stories circulating, but recently a surgeon proudly shown the pictures. As the story goes, a guy had to pee while in the river, the fish came and lodged itself in. The trophy belongs to the surgeon now, after successful surgery to remove the fish from the man. The man's commentary was not quoted in the article.

By the way, the carp is excellent for some spicy fish soup.

Perhaps they they should put all the European carp into the Amazon............may be it would keep the piranha happy...........problem is that they probably would not like them either????

I'll take your word on the soup.

In the midwest USA, the are Chinese carp that were introduced accidently into the local fishing waters. The issue was that the carp did not like the sound of boat motors causing them to leap out of the water and hit people in the boats, sometimes causing severe injuries. So, it was only natural for someone to think of a method of payback, crossbow fishing for flying Chinese carp. It is not as easy as it sounds, kind of like shooting skeet except you only get 1 shot. The persons (funner in groups) face towards the back while trolling, and the fish start jumping when the motor gets to a particular idle speed and then it is on. Pick your target (actually wager on the smallest fish speared), aim, shoot and real in the bounty. This is purely sport as these fish aren't eaten, kind of like eating a goldfish? These fish can get large, my record was a 12 lb.er

You would need a big goldfish bowl for that one????

My brother and I fished for carp in a stagnant pond using pieces of boiled potatoes for bait. We ate one just to find out what it tasted like. It wasn't really so bad.

My grandfather told us how to cook carp. He said something like "You put the carp on a wooden board, then pack it in mud. Bake it for 4 hours at 350 degrees. Then you peel off the mud, throw the carp away, and eat the board."

hahahahahahaah hehehehehehehe LOL

John.

Well I don't know why people don't like carp to eat??

They were originally kept by monks in pools near the monastery for food, so they can't be that bad to eat?

I thought that fresh water fish just have to be soaked overnight in salt water same as pike and other fish....

John.

I have filleted carp in the 5 - 15 pound size range (bow-hunted, with fish line attached to arrows) and smoked them over green applewood branches [I have a stone and mortar smokehouse on my property, big enough to handle a pig or half a beef at a time]. We took it to a picnic, and something over 40 pounds were eaten in about two hours - probably half a pound per guest. This was VERY fresh, less than 24 hours since it came out of the river at the edge of the place where the picnic was held. I could have sold smoked carp to anyone who tasted it there.

There's a local outfit that comes around every summer with half a dozen heavy-duty 18 - 20 foot square-ended (NEARLY) flat-bottomed boats. They take out thousands of pounds of carp per week, and have a ready market in Chicago. I understand that most is sold smoked.

What is "a half or Beef?"

Did you mean half a cow/bull?

Or were you just Beefing me?

Right; half of a cow or bull. This may be a local usage, a convenient way to describe a single bovine in genderless fashion after it has passed beyond the calf stage. ("Cattle" is fine for a collective noun, and even "Cows" can be understood to include a herd containing both sexes, but the singular "cow" implies a female) It also implies that the animal has been slaughtered for meat. Many herds of cows around here (Wisconsin: "The Dairy State") do consist only of females, so saying "beef cattle" or "beef cows" doesn't carry the same implication that "dairy cows" does.

Yup..I've eaten pike. My brother stuffed the head and we had it mounted on the bedroom wall. On day a mate of mine was staying over..we'd both drunk too much...so he stood up on the bed and put his fingers in the pike's mouth....

As I'm sure you know all the teeth are slanted backwards....

....and that taught him a lesson that dead fish still bite!!!

Why in the WORLD would you ruin good fish by soaking overnight in saltwater? (My own opinion, of course, there's no accounting for taste...) Pike is essentially the same as walleye, which is best eaten within a couple of hours of being caught (usually after, not before). But then I'll eat most anything, so I'm not the one to be talking...

Now, here's the big difference - pike are obligatory carnivores, their mouthparts and teeth are not meant for eating plant materials, so they are predators. While carp are essentially obligatory herbivores, and can scarcely consume any but the smallest of insects and crustaceans, usually by coincidence. Less difference between them than lions and pigs, but there are certain similarities.

For pike, I just wrap 'em in foil (cleaned & stuffed with e.g. almonds & capers, and a big squeeze of lemon) & bung'm in the oven (fresh from the river as possible). (Similar for perch, but you have to get a big'un to avoid lots of little bones).

Or just grill 'm. Or steam 'm. Or fry 'm. Or barbie 'm mmm ....

I have been a fisherman since the age of 5 and used to go with my father and grandfather before that! But to my mind, few UK (and German) freshwater fish are worth eating. I am not a friend of Carp either, but I do know a Lady from the Philippines that can make them taste good....how I do not know. I was very sceptical and only tried a morsel....

Germany has (had) a tradition of Carp at Christmas (never tried it) and there is a method to make it (the skin at least) turn Blue using vinegar and a special method!! It looks better some say......not me!!

Basically, if the fish (any freshwater fish) is to taste good, you must get it home alive and give it several days in say a garden bath tub (shame on Kris for damaging his!!) full of fresh clean water, at least every other day fresh water, and let the fish get rid of anything in his gut!!! This can take up to 6 days I have been told!!!

Then humane killing followed by dry salting for at least 48 hours in a cool place, before even thinking of cooking......

It all sounds like too much trouble for me.........I prefer when in the UK to either eat Fish and chips or go to a good restaurant!!!

Tell that to Gordon Ramsey next time there's trout on his menu !

Carp is very good when slow smoked for 12 to 14 hours. The bones fall out of the meat.

Need some big Rizlas!

Do you eat the bones when they fall out of the meat?

They would have to taste better than the flesh of the carp????

Smoked tuna, tommy ruffs, kingfish, atlantic salmon, okay................. but crap.............oops!!!!............sorry carp........slip of the old finger.

Then humane killing............

Put them on a highway...................let a few trucks run over them (crushes the bones)..............leave them for a couple of days...............shazam! jugged carp.

I think the good thing about that recipe (same same galahs) is that the wood does not absorb that muddy taste and has no bones in it.

This is a topic I didnt expect to see on this board! My most unusal method of fishing has been fish jumping into my Kayak while whitewater paddling. Made the use of a kayak skirt most preferable to the 1.5 lb bass flapping between my legs.

I never had any luck with home made depth charges... constructed of rocks and M80s fireworks. An M80 is supposed to be equal to a 1/4 stick of dynamite.

I can't say I have had the opportunity to shoot any live game yet with my 50BMG. But one day (soon I hope) a Whitetail will give me the opportunity in my side yard. An old friend told me he used a granade launcher against an Elk in Alaska from thier helecopter. Straight from "on the hoof" to BBQ.

I have heard the stories of using the old crank phones to shock fish and believed them. Now I am more skeptical after having the Dept of Fish and Wildlife come to my farm and shock both ponds and do a fish count. They used a large generator hooked to two telescoping poles (one on each side of the boat) with multiple electrodes in about a 4ft dia. They had to putter around the ponds and come in contact with the fish before it floated up to be netted.

Nope... a Quarter-Stick is equivalent to a quarter stick of dynamite. Unfortunately these little beauties seem to be out of production. I've had both & believe me, the difference is like between a firecracker & an M80. Really good for flying steel garbage cans. That reminds me, I still have 3 of them hidden away. They must be 8 or 10 years old...hmmmmmm.

I grew up in Northern New Hampshire, where moose are "hunted" with Dodge Ram pickup trucks. Anything smaller and the moose will get up and walk away...

To me though, regular deer hunting seems extremely odd. You get up at the crack of dawn, put on camo gear, rub yourself down with deer pheremones from urine, trudge out into the wilderness to sit in the freezing cold for hours, banging antlers together to attract the deer. And then you might not ever see one. Anywhere outside the woods, if you rubbed urine on yourself and banged antlers together, they'd put you in a psych ward.

I used to work for a farmer, who in his youth had a contraption for killing geese. He would dig a pit and line the bottom with gunpowder. He would then rig up 2 pipes - a large "barrel" situated at 90 degrees, and a smaller one at about 45 degrees, both pipes coming to a point right over the gunpowder. He would then mound up dirt over the gunpowder and around the pipes, and stick screws, nails, etc in the large "barrel". When the geese flew overhead, he would toss a lit match down the 45 degree pipe, igniting the gunpowder, and launching the makeshift shrapnel at the geese.

My buddies and I used to hunt eachother with potato cannons. Not exactly deadly, but they do leave a pretty good bruise. When I was younger, we would hunt eachother with bb guns. Our rule was 1 pump, and you had to shoot below the shoulders. I have a scar dead center in my chest from digging a bb out. Most of the time we just ended up with a bunch of welts on our rear ends, since the "a$$ shot" as we called it always had the funniest outcome for the victim.

Avery Montembeault

My buddies and I used to hunt eachother with potato cannons.

Hey that brings back memories. We use to have 'banger guns'...

Coming upto Nov 5th (bonfire night, Guy Fawkes etc in UK) we 'd buy penny bangers (fire crackers).
You cut a bit of bent pipe (old bicycle handle bars are good for this) hammer a bit of wood up the end which will be the grip. Stick a banger in the barrel end, hanging out slightly, light the blue paper, when it starts fizzing tilt the gun back so the banger drops down the barrel, drop an acorn down after it (they are nicely in season then)... aim and wait . I remember shooting a mate at close range, the acorn went right through his sweater and ended up as a grated mush giving him a nice bruise.
We even staged a duel.... face to face 20 yards...smoke billowing from the guns .. both went off near simultaneously... I felt no impact, then, just when I though 'bugger I missed' my mate grabbed his jaw and yelped...nice big black smudge along his jaw line . (No safety glasses..., we were only about 14 years old)

Del

Hey Del!! we used to do that, except that i used copper piping and no wooden handle.... After firing a few 'rounds' of acorns the pipe was a bit hot to hold...

It was amazing how far you could fire those acorns though...

In America my brother told me of the spud guns they make there... They are awesome!! the propellant is hairspray and they can fire a whole potato well over 200 yards, with a sound to match!!!

Fire anything like that in the UK and the armed response unit would be around in minutes!!

John.

Heh, instead of spuds, we used tennis balls, and for extra measure, we soaked the tennis ball with lighter fluid and ignited it (thereby touching off the lighter fluid in the bottom of the can stack.

Goodness gracious! Great (tennis)balls of fire!

When I was a young lad, I may or may not have made some pocket money building pulsers based on 555 timers to be connected to an automotive ignition coil. the HV lead could be dragged in the water (from a fiberglass boat I might add.) and fish would float to the top stunned.

This was for educational purposes only I am told.... ;D

I am surprised no one mentioned the other weapon we tested out as young'uns: Ye olde carbide cannon or carbide bomb. All you needed was some water, some calcium carbide and a source of ignition.

Hello Guest,

We used to do the Carbide Cannon trick.

We often did not bother about an ignition source, because we used to solder up the lan and lid, making a couple of small holes to allow water entry, and tie the almost sealed can to a large stone.

The stone sank, allowing water ingress, and the gas pressure inside the can happened faster than the acetylene could escape via the small holes we pierced to allow water entry.

The shock wave and noise was spectacular, and the fish rose, mostly stunned, just waiting a handy shore-based scoop net.

The Calcium Carbide is not so easy to purchase now.

There were several accidents locally, involving Carbide Fish Recovery Systems.

After I got older, I realised that the Carbide Fish recovery System was not fair to the fish, nor the lake or river ecology.

Kind Regards....

What is not commonly appreciated by many people is that Acetylene is quite unstable at pressures above around 5PSIG unless contained in a very small space or kept in solution in a solvent like acetone. I'm not sure why that is either.

I have never seen Calcium Carbide for sale anywhere in my lifetime. Might I ask how long ago that was?

Hello Rorschach

Early 1950's, and we had carbide lamps for use on cycles in those days.

Around 1952 Eveready came out with the electric headlamp for cycles, along with the special 2 cell battery which fitted, and that was the last of our carbide "liberated" from Dad's shed.

Later fishing was done at night, in local braided shingle rivers, using 6 volt motorcycle batteries with portable headlamps, and barbed fish spears, for silver-bellied eels, which are very tasty if cooked the right way.

Occasionally we speared a trout, which were generally pan fried.

Kind Regards....

I was born '52 - and was about 8 when I started carbide experimenting.

Thinking back, it may have been old stuff found in the shed - I don't think I can remember buying any.

I just tried to sell some on ebay, I was informed that I couldn't post it via Royal Mail (that was how it arrived) so it's on the shelf, well I have uses now. You can still get it in the UK from Caving Supplies.

John, you have a decade or so on me. I was born in '66 on the gulf coast, not a lot of hard rock mines in our area (unless you count salt mines.). My mom used to tell me about her dad's movie projector which was carbide lit, they did bit of cinnabar mining in Arkansas where she grew up and they used it there too.

Go look in areas where you have caves and you will have caving clubs. These know where to get the carbide form as some still use it for their helmet lights.

I know several places up in Yorkshire, UK, where you can buy it and as long as you look like a caver, they will sell it to you.

When I was a young lad I built an electric shotgun out of a galvanized pipe. It had a makeshift spark plug which consisted of a bolt with black tape wrapped around the threads. I used a spark coil designed for a model T ford to provide the spark. A crazy friend climbed up a large tree and wired it up there pointing up. We waited for geese to fly over and started the sparking. It went off, but no goose fell down. I never tried it again. Hmmm... It might still be up in the tree!

I think I'm missing something, here. Were you trying to shoot them with sparks!?

"Were you trying to shoot them with sparks!?"

No, no, it was an electric shotgun. The spark was to ignite the gunpowder which would propel the pellets at the geese. I think I emptied a shotgun shell into the pipe (powder first, then the pellets, then the wadding material).

A friend of mine had a homemade gun with a hammer like the old Flintlock. There was a tiny hole under the hammer which he filled with black powder which connected to the powder inside the barrel. He would put a cap (from a toy cap gun) over the hole. The hammer would hit the cap, setting it off, which would ignite the powder in the tiny hole, which would fire the gun. I think he hunted Jack rabbits with it.

I hunted Jack rabbits a different way when I lived in Utah. I would drive the back roads at night. Jack rabbits would frequently cross the road in front of me. If I switched the lights from brights to dim or vise-versa, the Jack rabbit would turn back and cross the road again. That's when I would run over him. When you hear the thump, thump, you know you got him! Yikes, I can't believe I really did that.

The wadding should go before AND after the shot.

While up in Canada on a high adventure trip, we taught the scouts how to place rocks in the shallow part of a stream to form a V with a narrow opening at the end. When you chase the salmon toward the large opening of the V they slowly enter the shallow water. If your lucky they won't jump over the rocks, but you wouldn't believe how fast a salmon can swim with very little water under it's belly. They managed to ALMOST land one, but had a lot of fun trying.

I always found comfort in the fact that even though I had a bad record of catching fish with a rod and line, I was the champion at catching rats! When I was young, my friends and I would go and fish on Lord Mountbatten's estate. It was one of his 'open to the public' lakes called Mopley pond! I think in the 20years of fishing there I must have caught 8 fish in total! On this particular day, my mate was pulling in fish like there was no tomorrow! And me, well I was just watch my float and playing with my fly rod. ( which never landed a fish ever, caught an impressive 2 lb bluebottle tho!!) As I had cracked the fly off, I had a normal hook tied on with a bit luncheon meat for added weight! I was trying to improve my technique by casting under the bush behind me when a rat lunged at the bait! I struck! I'd hooked the beast and off it went! Through the wire fence and into the bushes! Well after about half an hour of playing the monster, I had it in my net! A good half pounder! Well that was me set! Every time we went fishing, I would have a ledger out in the pond with a bell and my fly rod aimed at the bushes! It was a close competition after that! Great sport, better than fishing, I had a better success rate!

Rat-tastic...

I thought a cat might like that!! Works with pidgeons as well but without the fly line!

I recall in The Bay of Islands in the North island of New Zealand trying to fish off the side of a destroyer. As soon as you cast the line, a seagull (a rat with wings) would have the bait in its mouth and away he would go. Reeling him in wasn't the trouble, trying to get the hook out of his beak proved troublesome, they used to get a little agro.

It is the only place that I have fished where this happened on a very regular basis.

I reckon the seagulls were very hungry because the fish were to big to eat........... a truly magnificent area for fishing.

Slam them against the side of the ship a few times and they are much less likely to go nuts when you go to get them off the line, and you can cut up the corpse to use as bait too.

'Slam them against the side of the ship a few times' GreenPeace would love us lot!!

Greenwho? hey, I'm in the energy capitol of the planet, we use greenpissers for chum as well. Hey the sharks have got to eat SOMETHING right?

Never thought of that, could have been a good idea though.

How good is seagull flesh for bait????

This was back in the early 60s. Do it now and some fool would video it and you would end up in that certain creek, in a wire netting canoe with a paper paddle.

Try a larger weight and you'll get supplemental bait.

A fellow I used to work with related a tale from his son, who worked at a meat packing plant in western Kansas. There were a large number of Viet Namese and Lao Hmong immigrants in the town, and it seemed about 2/3 of them also worked at the plant. Jerry's son got to know them, so they invited him to go rabbit (jackrabbit) hunting with them. He met them with his shotgun, only to find them armed with nothing more than sticks - a bit less than a baseball bat in size, or something like a yard (meter) long and perhaps two inches (5 cm) in diameter. They'd stretch out in a curving line through the tall grass and flush a jack, which would take off running. One of them would give chase. Jacks are highly territorial, so it would always come back in a more-or-less circle, albeit a large circle. When it did, the man nearest whichever end of the line it ran to would take up the chase relay fashion. This would go on man after man until finally the jack was worn down enough for one to get up close enough to whack it with the club. Rabbit stew! Cheap eats, good exercise, camaraderie in the great outdoors, what more could a man ask, eh? Well, beer, yes, but other than that...