Hook Removal

Ouch!

That was not easy to watch!

That’s what friends are for!!!

-J.

That’s a buddy of mine from work here…

Just had one in my wrist last week from a @$%^*# smallie that shook while I was going to lip him. Was a Pop’R that hooked me. I subdued the smallie and cut the hook from the treble and kept on fishing for a couple hours. BTW…the smallie hooked itself so deep that it was bleeding all over the boat and me. I had to put it out of it’s (and mine!!) misery!

My soon to be sister in law (a flight nurse) and a soon to be brother in law (a paramedic) couldn’t pull it out because it was in so deep. So I made a trip to the Monticello Hospital emergency room where 2 hours, a shot of lidacain, and I’m sure many $$ later the hook was easily taken out. The only thing that hurts now (besides my wallet) is my arm from the tetanus shot they gave me.

Funny thing is there was another guy in there that had a hook in his hand. He kept the bait intact because he didn’t want to cut the lure. I had no option..unless I wanted to bring the fish in with me?

I had a similar experience last month – I got the hook almost through by myself – drove 9 miles home where my wife wouldn’t help get it the rest of the way through so $490.50 later the emergency room doctor did.

Is your tetanus shot up to date?

Had to do that before, a few times… Once in my head, a few other times in various other parts of the body.

Worst one that I’ve seen, although I’m sure there are way worse cases – (luckey I was not the hooked guy, I was the cutter in this case)… Fishing in the middle of nowhere in NW Ontario on a fly-in. Guy has a small pike throw a great big musky bait (Reef Hawg) hook into his wrist, right where the wrist joins the hand on the inside top portion.. Lots of tendons, etc in that area. The treble hook was lodged in so tightly that the two non-sunk prongs held it against the skin – we couldn’t hardly even wiggle the hook. Sunk prong was buried deeply.

Luckily, we always carry a small bolt cutters just for this problem. No way normal pliers can cut a huge, hardened musky hook. Cut the other two prongs as close as possible to the skin, and was able to push the sunk prong far enough back out of the skin to grab it with another pliers and get enough pull to get the barb to pop out of the tissue. You don’t realize how tough skin is until you try to pull a large-barbed musky hook through a number of layers of tissue.

All of this happened on the water with both boats tied together and drifting. Went back to fishing shortly thereafter.

Ouch is right!

Mike

Two weeks ago I hooked myself pretty deep and contemplated doing this. I decided to have my brother just grab and pull with his pliers. Not sure which would have been worse. But it came out and I’m not suffering from wallet shock.

We didn’t do anything less than a hospital would have done, except rip me off with over priced medicine. Thankfully my tetnus is up to date.

All of these stories make me want to puke. I do have one, though… When I was 6, my sister (4) walked behind me as I was casting a rapala from shore. My back swing hooked her right under the lip!!! My hearing still hasn’t come back from all of the screaming she did.

An educated sportsman or doctor will recommend the string yank method of hook removal when possible. Here is a link: String yank hook removal

It looks kind of barbaric but works very well for embedded hook removal.

not clicking on that…

Casting a fly into the wind is one sure way to wind up with a hook through the tendon at the top of your nose, as I discovered about 30 years ago on my favorite southern Minnie panfish lake.
Since we had no acess to cutters that day, an expensive trip to emergency room resulted. Instead of clipping off the exposed barb, the ER crew insisted on anesthesia and cut out the whole hook, with pain mostly in the pocketbook as mentioned above. Fortunately that part of the bridge of your nose as very few nerves.

Last week on the Upper St. Croix sadder but wiser we snipped a crankbait treble on the thumb of an unlucky walleye guy who came by in another boat…same problem, they had no clippers. This time ER trip also needed–the barb was buried in bone–EYOWWWW!

Fortunately, they avoided a nasty sunburn.

This worked slick. Going to have to learn how to do this one.

http://www.muskylink.com/video/2058344:Video:58006

Yup know the feeling. Been there done that a few times.
Last time into the ER the doctor had the nerve to say ” caught a sucker I see”

My last trip up to Canada I was handling a very large amount of Pike with my nephew and daughter along and well sure enough I took a hook to my index finger from a rampaging pike that slipped out of my hand. As initial luck would have it the rampaging and still hooked Pike caught my fishing line and severed it before it could thrash with the hook in my hand. Then I felt the hook as it had wrapped itself around my tendon and every little move of my finger caused a very strange pulling sensation/pain that cant be described here in words. As shear luck would have it after about ten minutes of manuevering the hook around it just popped out. It must of unhooked from the tendon, thank God I go barbless up there or it would of been atleast a full day down to Thunder Bay for some good old Canadien public health care (this is more scary to me than having that hooked wrapped around my tendon). Other than a little nerve damage that is slowly getting better- no harm!

i dodged a bullet a few weeks back on lake michigan when getting ready to net a fish the spoon came unbuttoned and bounced of the bridge of my nose and squarely off both lenses of my sunglasses

So I got the bill for the 5 minutes total that I was seen by both the nurse to give me tetanus shot and the Dr to take the hook out. $1003.92!!!! True, my insurance will pay for 80%, but holy $$%#$!!!! Still my portion is $200!! Just to get the hook out!! If someone said I’ll pay $1000 to put a hook in my arm I’d do it!! I just can’t believe it!!! Five minutes = $1000!!!

BTW…I did try the string hook removal trick…just really hurt and no hook out. The Dr took an IV (eye vee) needle and slide it over the back side of the barb and pulled it and the hook back out in less than 5 seconds. $1000…

And your surprised??

Who do you think pays for the 5 people in front of you in the ER that don’t have insurance and don’t pay their bills?

The good news is this will change with the new Health Care reform. You’ll just get to pay the 1000.00 up front before you put the hook in your arm.

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And your surprised??

Who do you think pays for the 5 people in front of you in the ER that don’t have insurance and don’t pay their bills?

The good news is this will change with the new Health Care reform. You’ll just get to pay the 1000.00 up front before you put the hook in your arm.

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Last year I had a 10″ top raider sink so deep into my left index finger that the barb was into the bone. When it went into my finger it was still hooked to a 40″ class Muskie. I was lucky the fish came off at that time. 2 hours of surgey and $3500.00 later the bait is now on my wall.

Terry Filkins
NPAA #180
Salmo USA

This one just cost me my dignity.

The tough part was getting the rod and reel through my nose.

Sorry for the reposted pictures. They seemed fitting.

Can someone just ban this guy? OMG! BK, I really want to take you up on a guided flat head night on the river, at this point you’ll have to pay me to get in your boat!

Never had a bad hook myself, but I have seen many in the hospital I work at. The string thing works great, make sure to pre-medicate with whiskey as seen in the one video, helps to clean the wound afterward too. Then get the shot too! And some antibiotics, and a swine flu and VHS shot? Tetanus is bad, better to have a sore arm for a few days than be dead (I know they hurt, jeez I couldn’t pitch ball to my kids for a week but I’m alive to do so now!).

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Yup know the feeling. Been there done that a few times.
Last time into the ER the doctor had the nerve to say ” caught a sucker I see”

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I remember that day

Oooooooh ouch. I sure do Sherry. Good thing I had that side cutter with me.
How have you been haven’t seen or heard from you in a long time

I am hanging in there. I am still battling the cancer and found out it has spread some more. We’re working on it though. I was out your way in July for a week and a half and even fished some of our haunts at Winnieshank, Cold springs, and Desoto. Man, I sure do miss fishing with ya and them yummy fish fries. While I was out there, I caught this PB kitty up in LaCrosse. Other then that, I finished my job here in Milwaukee and will now be heading up north to be closer to my God Daughters and the rest of the family.

I too had the unfortunate encounter with a hook from a daredevil buried in my finger while fishing for northerns in Canada a few years back. Cast out, felt like something hit it, so I gave it a jerk. Next thing the Daredevil was flying towards my face so I flinched and raised my hands up to protect my face and bam, it hit me. Had to go to the emergency room at the International Falls hospital, waited an hour and a half. Took the doctor about 20 seconds to jerk it out with a needle nose pliers, after the novicane took effect. Got a Tetanaus shot, cost me $100 after ins. and I was back fishing that night. Took about 6 months for it to completely heal.

Ah HA!

The trusted red and white daredevil!

I had my first embedded hook taken out 2 weeks ago. I was at a friends cabin on Cross lake. There was a rock bass catching contest going on between a couple of the guys on my boat and I was going through the tackle box trying differant lures hoping to latch onto a big northern while everyone else was poking around for rock bass, crappie, sunnies, etc,.

I tied on a lipless crankbait that I had never used before and caught a 22inch or so northern on the second cast. It had both trebles in it and seconds after I removed the first treble it started flopping wildly. Once second I am holding the fish and it had a hook in it’s mouth, the next, it is free and flopping on the floor of the boat and I have a hook buried to the bend in my palm!

I cussed a few times with my hand closed around the bait not wanting to look at first, everyone on the boat noticed something was not right and they started getting excited. I could not look at first, one of those “I know this is gonna be bad and don’t wanna see just how bad” moments.

It went in below the thumb on the pad of my palm, nice and meaty, burned more then anything! I cut the line off then cut the hook off that was not in me to give me one less thing to worry about and tried to remove the hook. That did not go well, everytime I gave it a tug my thumb went numb. I was concerned there was a nerve nearby and decided to hit the ER in Brainerd.

Brainerd’s ER must be the Mayo clinic and John Hopkins of hook removal! Recepcionist looked up as I walked in and casually commented on my situation.

I got back into a room after 10 minutes, thankfully things were slow in there. The shot of lidocain was the worst part of it!! I am not a fan of needles and did not watch but I think he shot me with it right in the wound! Dang that hurt! Doc took a cutter, cut the body of the lure from the hook, took a section of cord and 2 yanks and it was out! After a tetnous booster I was walking back out.

Bill came last week, $850!!! Insurance company got it down to $510. I think I might try harder to remove my own next time.

No, I will try not to even get hooked at all anymore!

Time to fess up……That is me on the video. First I have to thank Tuck for posting that fine bit of cinematography second I have to thank Dean for selling blade baits with razor sharp hooks. Those Everts blades are dangerous for walleye and also the occasional fisherman.

Here is the story…..Four of us went to a Canadian outpost this summer for a week of walleye and small mouth fishing. This place was awesome……..We caught so many bass and eyes it was crazy.

My partner and I pulled up to a nice looking point and started casting. He was using a jig and tail and I decided to change it up and put on a blade bait. It was game ON Fish after fish was coming to the boat and then I caught a nice little eater walleye, about 16 inches long. As I took out the blade bait, with my bare hands, ” note to self, use pliers” the little guy shook…All of a sudden I have a fish on the front treble and my finger on a back. After messing around for a while my partner finally got the fish off but we still had a little problem…..I had a hook buried in my finger

We decided to head back to camp and try and figure this out.
Once back we used out walkie talkie to call the other boat. I knew what had to be done and was not looking forward to pushing that hook through the skin and clipping the barb. My partner was white as a ghost and did not want to be the one twisting the hook so I told him to start mixing some drinks and to keep them coming…..After about a 1/2 hour of soaking my finger in ice water and about a 1/4 bottle of Vodka it was time. Well I guess the rest of the story is on Utube for your viewing pleasure, but for the record it hurt like #$%@$@%$@