Geez, good question. I wouldn't know how to cook a fish if I caught one, and I still have fish hooks and line in my PSK <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I think you're probably right - you could walk to civilisation in 48 hrs from anywhere in the lower 48:

- if you could walk;
- if you knew where you were;
- if there were no obstacles in the way.

Why then do people still manage to turn up dead in National Parks?

You may have a companion who's too badly injured to move or leave, I suppose.

The only survival story I know of where fishing gear saved someone's life was one I read in Reader's Digest many years ago. A young man drove off the road over a steep embankment, the car landed on its roof, and he was trapped inside for a week or possibly more, if I recall correctly. No food, no water; the only things he could reach were the clothes he was wearing and a fishing pole in the back seat.

By hooking his T-shirt to the fishing pole, he was able to cast it into a nearby stream and "fish" for fresh water; that kept him alive until relatives, painstakingly retracing his route, spotted faint evidence beside the road that led them to the overturned car. It had landed in a position that was all but invisible from the main road, even by an observer standing on the shoulder and looking straight down.

Maybe it does fall into the category of "Why the heck not?" <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />