So I am fishing Cass lake last night and catch a nice smallie on top water. I lip the fish and he shakes his head and sticks a treble hook in my finger. ( ouch ). I reach for my pliars the fish goes crazy and I drop him. Bad news is another treble sticks in my knee. ( double ouch ). I sit down to assess the situation and look around and there is no one in sight. I get the fish un-hooked and in the live well. Luckily the hook in my knee is only in a little ways. I am able to get it out and it is only bleeding a little. The hook in my finger is another story. It is in below the barb pretty good. About a year ago I stuck myself and got it out with the fishing line method. I had read about it on the web. I still had the line in my first aid kit. I got it out and hooked it to the shift lever and was able to get the hook out. Now my boat looks like some horror movie with blood spots everywhere. Good thing it was raining all night.
Bottom line is if you have never read how to remove a fish hook I would recommend you take the time to read it. There are lots of articles on the web. Also cut a piece of line and put it somewhere that you can get to it easily.
Been there, done that except I used the use needle nose pliers to run the point back out of the skin and cut off the barb. Never realized that flesh was so tough to push the hook through.
I have been so lucky and never had a barb go past the skin (knock on wood fiber glass or...). Have seen a few hooks dangling from others though ::).
Great read Dartag. I am sure some of the guys have a few hook stories they could share?
Dave
The on nice thing about being alone is I cried and nobody saw it :'(
I've seen enough hook trauma that I never lip hook anything anymore unless it's a single hook. Everything else I use fish grippers for or just hoist it in with the rod. With as much typing as I do at work, it's annoying to do it wearing bandaids.
I've stuck myself good twice - once I used the fishing line method, the other I pushed the barb through and cut the hook. I'm pretty sure that both were equally painful to remove but my selective memory has blocked the details of both. :)
I'd never stuck myself past the barb until two weeks ago. Rods laying on deck, knelt on a crank by accident and sent one into my knee.
Did the string trick, and was blown away by how well it worked; barely felt it come out.
Although it loses it's value when the hook/barb is big. Put a spook into a buddies scalp years ago while camping/fishing. Had to go back to camp and cut the hook out with a scalpel. Luckily, I had lidocaine & sutures with me, so he really didn't feel it when I cut, or when I put two stitches in.
His worst complaint was the weather was in the mid 90's, and he couldn't put his head in the lake to cool off... :'(
I never had this happen to me but years ago I had a dog that loved to try to snatch my lure as I would cast. She got one good hook to her mouth and never tried it again. Good thing she learned her lesson quick
Glad to hear you were prepared Steve and got the hook out OK