Have you ever gotten hooked?

[Bushman]

I was talking to my step-son yesterday and he was telling me about how his father-in-law's fly in Canadian fishing trip got cut short this year because a northern pike that he was unhooking threw a big hook into his hand that went in all the way to the bone. The hook was too big for his wife to cut off with the cutters that they had, so they had to do emergency room surgery in Thunder Bay. I guess that we have all been stabbed some by fish hooks, but I'm wondering if any of you have taken one past the barb and what were the circumstances? How did you get it out then?

[ncboman]

oh boy,

so far I've been lucky.

The only ones that got past the barb were flyrod poppers and I worked them out myself.

[Bill Gunn]

I've had 2 good ones I remember (and a few others I'm sure).
The first was when I was walleye fishing one night about 15 years ago. I had about a 4 pounder in the boat and it was very dark out, but we had some (a little) night vision. The lure was caught in the net and in the fish, and I was trying to get it all apart. I got the hook out of the net, and the darn walleye was going nuts, flopping all over the place, and for some reason, I couldn't let go of it. I was kneeling in the bottom of the boat just where the front platform started, and I asked my (77 year old, slightly hyper) fishing buddy to "turn on the flashlight and shine it over here".
When he did, he about lost it. The walleye was still flopping, and it had driven a #4 treble through the last segment of my left index finger all the way through from one side to the other, barb and all.
The entire bow area of the boat was covered in blood from all the flopping.
I told him to dig out the cut-off pliers I had in the tool box (Of course it was buried in the side storage bin covered with a ton of fishin' stuff). He was so upset from the sight of all that blood that I had to calm HIM down, so he could get me the pliers. When he finally got them to me, I just cut the hook, and the hole it made was so big that it just fell out of my finger.
We just wrapped it up and kept fishing, for some reason it didn't hurt that much.

From that day on I had a 2 plier tool pouch mounted to the side of my boat console that held a set of side cutters, and needle nose.

I was glad I did that, cause I needed both of 'em for the next one. I was daytime trolling for walleyes this time, but in Lake Erie you never know what is going to hit your bait.
This time it was a 6 pound Steelhead (rainbow trout to stream fishermen, the steelhead around here get over 30#s). Kind of the same scenario, he was floppin' and got me.
This time the #4 treble was in the center of the pad of my thumb, and tight into the bone. I had to pull it back a bit, turn it to the side, push it out the side of my thumb past the barb, and cut the hook off, then push the rest through.
It's very surprising how hard you have to push a brand new #4 Triple Grip hook to get it to go through your stretchy skin. My cousin had to hold the skin down next to where I was pushing the hook through, to make it penetrate.
That one hurt for about a week, but we stayed and got our walleyes that day too.

And folks think this fishin' is all fun !!

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

When I was about 13 my dad and one of his friends were fishing way back in the swamps. It was about an hour boat ride to get there. About the third cast Milford stuck an H&H in his scalp. The skin was too tough to push it through so I sat on his head and my dad operated cutting it free. I don't recall ever going fishing with Milford after that.

My sister stuck a perch hook through and through her little finger (the pad). My Dad cut it off and pulled it out without much ado. My sister screaming and my mother disinfecting the whole process was pretty entertaining though.

After an hour and a half car ride and an hour boat ride, one of my wife's nephews stuck a 1/4 oz jig through my Father-in-law's upper lip on a back-cast. Pretty damn exciting there for a min. Got a bad backlash on the reel too. He had to wear it back to the ER and $300 later he was on his way. I don't recall them going fishing with him again either.

I keep a double edged dagger stuck in the baitboard right under me when I am running trotlines for just such emergencies. Haven't had to use it yet, hope I never will have to, but it's there if I need it. That'd be bad news to get jerked off of a boat with a hook in your hand on a weighted trotline. I've got plenty of knives on me most of the time.

Alan

[Bill Gunn]

I have a funny one I now remember.
A friend and co-worker of mine who's name also happens to be Bill (no... Honest, it was a friend, I'd take credit for this one if it was me !!) was trout fishing in one of the small streams in south central NY, about a 90+ mile ride back to home.
Some how he got a small Mepps spinner stuck in his eyebrow over the corner of his eye. He tried to get it out, but it was to deep, and being over his eye, it was also hard to see what to do.
This guy was one of those guys you loved to have on your job. A good worker, always in good spirits, and always had something to say that would make you laugh. The spinner wasn't causing any pain at all, and other than annoyingly fluttering in front of his eye every time he blinked, he decided he could live with it until he got home where his wife could preform the necessary surgery.

On the way home it got to be about 1:00 pm, and he was getting mighty hungry, and with 80 miles or so to go, he decided to stop in a small town gin-mill for a beer and a sandwich.
Now, this was in the late 70's or early 80's, well before it was in fashion to have your face perforated in various places, all in the name of vanity. He walked in to the otherwise empty pub, and took a seat at the bar.
The old country bar keep looked at him kinda strange, but never said a word about the spinner. Bill ordered a beer and a sandwich, drank the beer, ate the sandwich and also never mentioned the newly acquired fashion accessory.
Every once in a while the bartender would sneak a look at Bill, and Bill would catch him. Bill would wink his eyelid a couple times so that the spinner would give the barkeeper a twinkle, but still not a word was spoken about the spinner.
Bill ate up, paid his tab and left.

No doubt that bartender had a heck of a story to tell the next guy that walked in !!

[dave-t.]

My buddy Dave tells a story about fishing with his Dad on the Big River for smallmouth, and he set the hook with a 4" floating rapala on the line that came back at him and the back trebble sunk into his forhead. The front hook was hanging all over his eye and really making things dangerous. They were about two miles down river, and his 10hp mercury decided it didn't want to play anymore, so we had to use the trolling motor to head against the current to get back. Aparently it took forever to make it back.

When he got to the ramp, which was a public access, the place was packed with swimmers and fisherman, and Dave was trying to hide the 4" lure on his head by only facing a certain way, and holding his hand over the lure when he had to look towards the crowd. He says he felt goofy as all get out, considering that he also had to keep his head cocked like he was looking toward the ground, since the treble was hanging right infront of his eye. Before they even pulled the boat out of the water, he went around to the side view mirror and flat yanked that hook out of his head, more out of frustration and embarrassment than anything else.

It must have been a pretty grim experience, but it is one of those stories that the retelling of it gets better every time. Dave is one of those guys who is always concious of the way he dresses, and his overall appearance, and just picturing him trying to play off having a rapala in his head infront of a crowd is one of those mental images that pops into my head from time to time that can get just about bring me to tears.

[Bushman]

That is one of the reasons that I never pull really hard on a snag. I've seen jigs come back at a guy like they were shot out of a gun. Also not only for the sun protection, but also a reason to wear a big brimmed hat and of course always glasses for the eye protection. Dad had a way of sidearm throwing big northern lures. All well and good if it was on the away side of the other guy in the boat (me) but that wasn't always the case. "You go ahead and fish dad, I'll just run the boat and watch." And duck.

[GF.]

More than a couple, but these are the closest to serious…….

As a teenager, a ‘friend’ was pretending to be fly-fishing with a bobber and a #8 Eagle Claw baitholder, ripping it back and forth off the pond. I had moved off to a safer distance, but on one of those trips headed back, my face somehow got in his way, and as I put my hand to my face where the bobber had smacked me – a bobber’s width below my completely dominant right eye – I felt the eye of the bait holder, which was buried in my cheek past the mid-point of the bend.

Somewhat horrified, he offered to take it out for me. I declined in a somewhat colorful fashion.

So, looking like a punk rocker, I walked home and on into the kitchen where Ma was on the phone with Dear Old Dad. Turns out she was asking him where she should take my older brother, who had just slashed opened a good inch or so of the back of his thumb while carving on a decoy kit we’d gotten Dad for Christmas that year. Turns out that plastic surgeons are really good with hands, so we got the 2-for-1 special that day, and I have next-to-nothing for a scar.

But my brother and I, being… my brother and me; well we just thought the whole thing was too damn funny as we sat in the waiting area for the ER watching people try to figure out how these two injuries were related and how my mother had managed to maintain a shred of composure :p

Next best yarn is from a couple years ago when I was out in the rowboat with the two boys (then aged 3 and 5). We were a good 10-15 minute pull from the dock when a schoolie striper of about 18” snapped his head to the side while I was trying to unhook his puny little self. He stitched one point of a treble clean through the back of my right ring finger – in and out, but shallow.

So I wrapped the wire leader into my hand to keep the thing from flopping around and rowed over to borrow some pliers from a guy who was just sitting there at his mooring. He didn’t have any, but the police boat was cruising by, so he called them over on the radio and one of the paramedics on board loaned me his multitool.

You’d expect those guys to have a stronger stomach, really, but he was a lot greener than either of my boys as I first clipped the hook free of the lure and then clipped off the barb. Admittedly, I was doing my best to downplay the whole deal, so as not to worry the boys, but honestly, it just didn’t hurt enough to even think about it. Even then, though, it was surprisingly difficult to get that hook back out through the skin, so I have to hand it to the guys who’ve had barbs hauled back out the hard way.

That’s gotta sting a little….