fish,hooks and fingers...a true story

[196thDLR]

One of the presents my son wanted when he graduated from St. John's University was to spend a week fishing in Canada.That wasn't very hard for me to swallow at all. We planned the trip together to go to a lake called Packwash west of Ear Falls and set up camp at a small resort near a very fast moving river that flows into the English River system. Tom and I were having a pretty good day fishing with having boated several fish that anyone would be proud to claim.

He and I were trolling #7 ShadRaps in 14-15ft water. This small bay we were fishing in was a 40 minute boat ride from camp. I caught a 2# Northren and kept my line too tight, the o-ring on the lip gave way and now I have all three hooks buried past the barbs. One hook was in the flesh next to the forefinger and the other two were in the thumb with a fish struggling to get away. The back treble is still in the fish. The hook in the forefinger pops thru past the barb; the other two keep getting buried further and further into the thumb. My son who thinks pretty well on his feet, got out the big hook cutters, grabed the fish and cut the back treble away. Instant relief! He cut the protruding hook and got that out of my forefinger. After a couple of trys to push the other two hooks thru we suspected that the points of the hooks were in the underside of the big bone in the thumb. 40 minute boat ride to camp; 43 miles to Ear Falls on some of the nastiest roads in Canada, get to the clinic to find out that the doctor only comes down from Red Lake every other day. Now, after 2-1/2 to 3 hours my hand is swollen to twice its normal size. I am in PAIN! {I know the difference between pain and an ache.} The receptionist thought she was being funny when she told me about the doctor, and then stated that I was very lucky. Up to now I did not feel very lucky. The doctor was in and would see what he could do for me when he had time. A 1/2 hour latter I am ushered into a examining room and starts to sweep up a messy area on the floor and asks me what I was in for. I held up my left hand and showed him the ShadRap. He starts telling me how many people come in from the water with hooks in all parts of the body. Then he said he would be with me as soon as he got the floor cleaned up!! I thought the guy was the janitor. He looks at the hand and tells me he does not need ex-rays to tell him the points of the hooks are in the bone of the thumb.

The doctor gets a seringe, and puts 10 cc's of something in it, and tells me this is going to hurt, but I will feel better in a couple of minutes and sticks in my thumb. A couple of minutes and there is no felling from my middle finger to the thumb and to the wrist. The doctor getts a pair of flat-nosed pliers and starts tugging and pulling downward on the hooks. all of a sudden two hooks appear through the skin, grabs a pair of wire cutters, cuts the hooks pulls the remaining part of the hooks out, and I'm free.

He looks at me; and here is where I think I am going to part with a significant amount of my hard earned dollars, and asked me if I had ever been here before. I said no, he states, and you are not here now becaue i am not fillig out all that %&#@* paperwork the the government wants. good luck he says and walks out the door.

[Poutmaster]

Ok - Lots of hand and finger stories here so far, but I was able to bury a hook into my lip!! It was a smaller fly hook and I was tying a new knot, and biting off the tag end. I tried to pull the tag a little tigher (with my teeth) the hook slipped and burried right into my upper lip. After a few futile minutes of my brother trying to work it out, we decided we'd better head back to the cabin to get it out. Once we got back, my lip was already swelled up like a bee sting. We spent nearly 2 hours in front of the bathroom mirror. I was pulling my lip as light as could be, he was pushing the fly (only the hole on the shank was outside my lip so he didn't have much to work with). Finally he broke through with hook tip on the other side and pulled it out from there.

It was a funny ordeal even at the time. Unlike some of the other stories here, there was never any danger or reason to panic but it really is hard to manuver a hook burried in skin and flesh.

I have also given up the practice of tightening knots with my teeth!

[Deitz Dittrich]

TSC-

[Ruttin' Buck]

I've been fortunate enough in my 20-some odd years of fishing to not have hooked myself. But, I do have to pass on a story I heard second-hand about a few old friends of mine...mostly because I was in stitches when they told me.

So the two brothers were fishing a large lake in northern MN when the younger brother buries a rapala in the top of his head. Now, I don't know that I can do this duo justice in text, but I can tell you that these two are something else. Comical and whimsical do nothing for explaining this pair and this story is only fitting for them.

So they assess the situation. Fortunately, the guy at the time kept his head nearly shaved bald so it was easy to see that all three hooks on one trebel, yes I said on a SINGLE trebel, all three barbs were buried! The irony of this alone started my laughing...

Well, the two decide that this isn't going to happen on the water and decide to take it back to shore. Well...as luck would have it, there was something of a squall on the lake that day...and if I recall, they were something like 30 minutes from camp.

So they fire up the 40 hp on the 16' Sea Nymph and give'er. As you can imagine, this boat was bounding about in the whitecaps and the pair had to hang on just to stay on their seats. Unfortunately, this meant the rapala was free to flop around atop this guys head. Well finally, at some point, he had to decide to free up a hand to hold this rapala.

So now you have two guys leaning forward ducking spray and topping waves as fast as a 40 hp force can move a boat with one guy who looks like he's making the 'rock' of rock paper scissors atop his head.

So they make it back finally and head to the Bemidge hospital where they remove the hooks without incident. However, when the doc hangs the lure up on their corkboard wall of shame, the at the time college kid asks him to please remove it and give it back...cause that thing cost like $5! The doc did give it back and back to the lake they went.

I wish I could have seen them coming across the lake. To this day I chuckle thinking about it.

[molson_canadian24]

best walleye shore spots in mankato at night and what is prefered tackle?....thank you

[dwag70]

This reminds me of a story ..

I was doing a little shore fishing last spring and past a lake that was shoulder to shoulder. I did not have much time so i walked down to see what was being caught. I am standing there watch when a father is about to cast and he hooks his son standing behind him in the ear... Does not bother to turn around and see what he has snag on the back cast and proceeds to give it a couple of quick hard jerks forward to try and loosen the snag... He son in the mean time is gettin jerked forward and just starts screaming.. Pretty soon there are 10 people around this kid every one lookin and pulling trying to get it out... They are actually trying to back the hook out of this 5-7 year olds ear... I felt like an !@#4 for walking in and cutting the hook and pulling it out but the look in the kids eyes was like finally.. Made it worth it... I proceeded to leave with out saying anything and I will never fish that shore ha ha

[Bassboy1645]

Been fishing since i was 2, so thats 15 years of fishing now that im just turning 17. Had more hooks go through and into my hands than i care to admitt, though never had any go through anywhere else. Never used the string trick, but i did cut the barbs off and push em back OUCH!!!!!!! Had em go through my knuckles fingers and under my figernail.....that one was the worst!!!!! One thing every hooked angler should do is get a tetnus shot asap. Even if your hooks are brand new. If you ask me no limb or extremities are worth losing over a lousy fishook!!!!!!

[markkstanley]

We were fishing in two boats on Rainy Lake. Friend in the other boat got his Rap hooked in a shoreline tree on a thick branch. Had to stand on tip toes on the bow to reach it. Wave hit and friend slips and is now hooked in both hands and lure is still attached to tree. The other guy in the boat couldn't move forward to help as bow would sink too much. We began to wonder what was going on with those two and wandered over. It took a while to get everything undone. Little bit of blood lots of yelling. My friend took the branch home and burned it. He still uses the lure. Funniest thing I ever saw well at least from my perspective.

[fishkid]

My dad and I were on a camping trip up in orr minnesota. It was midnight and my dad told me to go down into the boat and grab the 2 way radios out of the dashboard. so i went running down to the dock reached in the compartment and felt something sharp and my imidiate reaction was ouch and pulled back hard. Then found a bass buzzbait hook stuck past the curvy part of the hook in my finger. We had to drive all the way to the vermillion hospital to get it remobed from the hospital. plus i had food poising too that weekend.

Another story. Me and fishinmike0770 got to work at oddyssy lures over last summer. mike was putting 4/0 trebel hooks on a jp-6 crankbait . he tried gettting it on then the split ring slipped and stuck the hook into the top of his thumb. it looked pretty nasty. but he came back to work the next day, scard to touch one of those hooks for a wile. kind of maid me second guess how hard to twist the hooks on th bait.

[TSCTSC]

Thanks for getting the pic for me. I understand it now. Seems like a good idea.

[walleye_jigger]

I thought I would add my story from last week up in Canada. We were fishing for pike and I hooked into about a 5 pounder. It does a couple of runs and I think it's all worn out and decide to try and grab it behind the gills. So I hand the rod to my buddy and I grab the line and I am about to grab the pike when he gets his second wind. Low and behold I end up with a hook straight through my thumb. Lucky for me we had a set of cutters and 3 other guys that didn't have weak stomach's.

Here is what it looked like after it happened.

[fishnhooks]

Thanks for showing that pic, Just seeing that make me cringe!

"hooks"

[fish-n-geek]

walleye jigger - that just makes me shiver :-) Knock on wood, I've never been on the receiving end of one of those!

-rus-

[Gus]

Yup, Time to think about barbless for me! That pic just sinks the reality in even further that these accidents can happen. I hope it didn't ruin your trip.

[Mudflap]

Walleye Jigger,

Was your Mamma along to kiss that paper cut?

Suck it up and get back to work!

[walleye_jigger]

Gus...

No it didn't ruin my trip. We were back fishing probably within an hour

Mudflap...

Speaking of work how many comp days do you have left.

[tripper]

Some years ago me and a friend took oer troop of boy scouts out camping and fishing. My son was fish with the other troop leader , who caught a northern and when my son went to land it the northern threw the hook embedding it in my sons arm. The troop leader cut the hook free of at the swivle and brought my son over to me. I made one atttempt at freeing the hook and headed for the Bigfork ER. The Doc. gave me another troop leader and one of my sons friends a lesson on hook removale useing fishing line that day. He did nothing to numb the area and my son never realized when the hook came out.The doc. had him look a picture on the wall at the instant he removed the hook.

What he did was to take three wraps with the line at skin level where the hook entered the skin eaving plenty of tg line to hold onto. Then he pushed down and back on the shank of the hook near the eye, said that move relased the barb, then gave a quick, slightly down strieght back jerk on the tag ends with the other hand and the hook was out. Needless to say the whole troop practiced doing this on drump sticks and rabbit legs latter on. Thankfuly I have never had to try it on a person yet.

[Gopher]

The line trick really works. I had a Shad Rap treble get buried in a finger last year on the Mississippi when I dropped a small Smallmouth. Its not a good feeling when you see the hook buried. I had read about the line trick so we tried it. We used a steady pull and the hook came out of the hole it made when it entered without tearing any additonal flesh.

[Hydra Sport]

Last week we were fishing up near McGregor and had a couple of visitors from Illinois with us.1 who fishes with us at least a couple times per year and another who hasn't for a long time. The rookie to the group came armed with a couple muskie lures and was actually doing ok. He landed about a 5 or 6# pike and while he seemed nervous we basically told him he could handle it. He was a big boy now! Well the Pike thrashed and put one barb into his arm and out the skin the other barb was buried to the hilt. The Northern in the mean time is hanging off of his arm. After a mad scramble we get the fish off the lure and proceed to CPR the fish and nearly the fisherman. He came around when he figured out that we Minnesotans aren't real big on whining and seeking sympathy. SUCK IT UP!! We asessed the situation and were sure how to go about it but he was sure a tendon was involved so off to the hospital we go. 3 hours later he is in relief 4 hours later we are back on the lake. Ok so we're a bit hard core.

[ZOKU]

*knock on wood*

No nightmares like that yet.

[EmptyLiveWell]

Last month fishing with my son and a friend I was lifting a slimmy northern out of the net, it started to thrash about, the natural thing to do when a squeeze harder well the fish slipped out of my had and stopped after the Rapala was 3 hooks deep in the web of my hand. We cut the ring that holds the Rapala and the trebal hook and we were back fishing. A Stop at the ER later that night and I was good as new.

[Hoffer]

walleye jigger - how the heck did you get that out?? It looks like the barb of the hook was buried deep - and throught the thumb nail - and would literally need surgery to remove? I dont think the line trick would work in that situation?? Please let me know - just in case that ever happens.

[BLACKJACK]

ZOKU, love your avatar!!!

[walleye_jigger]

If you look at the picture the tip of the hook that is through my finger is sticking out about a 1/8 inch. Lucky for me we had 2 sets of cutters with. So a buddy of mine cut the hook right at the top of my nail and then with a set of pliers we grabbed the tip of the hook that was sticking out and pulled the rest of the hook all the way through. It was a feeling I never forget.