Beer Can Shows How to Turn Tab Into Fishing Hook

So… you’re in a survival situation. You’re stranded and hungry, you can scrounge some cordage but all your fishing gear is oddly not in your pockets, because you didn’t expect this. All you really have is a multitool, what you’re wearing, and what you can find.

Sadly, that last category will very often include trash, discarded by thoughtless jerks. Happily, if you can find an aluminum beverage can, you might be able to build yourself a fish hook using the tab.

This isn’t news, but not everyone has seen it… so it’s kinda cool that some hipster brewery decided to place instructions for it on their cans.

Not everyone has figured out the best way of doing this; here’s one of the most common photos of can tab fish hooks. As you can tell, they’re decidedly more crude than the one proposed by the can above.

Apparently, the best way to remove the tab from the can with the loop/eyelet intact is to rotate the tab 180 degrees and lift up on it, causing it to pull up over the rivet that holds it in place. Thie makes a much nicer-looking hook.

Happy fishing!

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.