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Catch And Cook Without Tools Day 23 & 24 Of 30 Day Survival Challenge

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Two bushcrafters, one lake full of trout, and zero metal tools to cook them with.

By day 23 of a month-long survival run through the Canadian Rocky Mountain backcountry, Greg Ovens and Zachary Fowler weren’t looking for a good meal — they were looking for any meal. Camped on the shores of Grizzly Lake, the two survivalists turned their attention to the water beneath them, betting that the lake’s trout population could carry them through another stretch of the 30 Day Survival Challenge.

The rule governing the entire expedition never changes: if it’s going to be eaten, it has to be caught and cooked on-site, with no packed-in gear. That means no rods with reels, no fillet knives, no pots, and no pans — just whatever the two men can rig up from what’s lying around camp.

• Days 23 and 24 of the 30-day expedition are spent camped at Grizzly Lake in the Canadian Rockies.
• Ovens and Fowler target the lake’s trout using primitive, tool-free methods after running low on food.
• The catch is cooked directly over open coals and hot rocks, without any pots, pans, or metal utensils.

Grizzly Lake Becomes the Only Option

Nearly a month into the trek, the margin for error is thin. Ovens, who runs the channel Ovens Rocky Mountain Bushcraft, is teamed with Zachary Fowler of Fowler’s Makery and Mischief — a survivalist who’s already proven he can go the distance, having won Season 3 of the History Channel series Alone. That background matters here: this isn’t a weekend stunt, it’s two experienced woodsmen leaning on real skills after three-plus weeks of calorie deficit in the backcountry.

Grizzly Lake gives them a target they can actually work with. Trout are visible, they’re active, and unlike foraging for berries or roots, a successful catch delivers real protein — the kind of dense calories the pair need after nearly a month of restricted rations. The problem is getting one out of the water and onto a fire without a hook, a net, or a knife.

Fishing With Nothing But Hands and Improvisation

Without tackle, Ovens and Fowler fall back on the oldest tricks in the bushcraft playbook — reading the shallows, working the trout toward the shoreline, and relying on quick hands rather than gear. It’s the same problem-solving that runs through their earlier segments in the series, including the improvised shelter builds documented in Amazing Bushcraft Tent made from Plastic Wrap!, where the pair had to make do with whatever scraps the wilderness — or their packs — happened to provide.

Once a fish is secured, the work isn’t over. Cleaning and preparing it falls to whatever sharpened stone or carved wood edge they can put together on the spot, since carrying a blade would break the challenge’s central rule.

If you want to eat, you’ve got to catch it and cook it — right there, right then, with nothing but what the mountain gives you.

Cooking Over Coals, Not Cookware

With the trout cleaned, the fire does the rest. Rather than a pan or a spit rig with metal hardware, Ovens and Fowler roast the fish directly over glowing embers and on heated rocks pulled from the fire pit — a method that demands constant attention, since there’s no handle to grab and no way to control heat beyond moving the fish or the coals themselves. It’s a technique that echoes the field cooking shown in Lemon Crunchy Chicken cooked in the middle of the forest, where open-flame improvisation replaces a kitchen entirely.

For two men running on a steep calorie deficit, a cooked trout pulled straight off hot stone isn’t a delicacy — it’s the difference between pushing on to day 25 with something in the tank or grinding through another stretch of the Rockies on empty.

Day 24 closes with the same lake, the same fire, and the same math: whatever they pull from Grizzly Lake tonight is what fuels the next leg of the 30-day push through the Canadian Rockies.