Dang!

[Terry Dodge]

So I won this TALS-500 wading pack. Man is this thing neat.

So I'm sitting there at my fly tying desk loading this thing up with all my spin-gear plugs and I

happen to drop a jointed minnow down inside the pack and one of the treble-hooks get caught up

in the mesh netting part of the TALS-500 wading pack. Dang! so I grab my needle-nose and start

kind of tugging on it. Dang! I just got the other treble-hook caught up in the same stuff. Well now

I start crimping the barbs down so I can get this plug out and into it's nifty little plastic container that

comes with the TALS-500 wading pack. I get the barbs smashed down on one of the treble hooks

and give it another tug only to have the entire plug come free and lodge one of the hooks deep into my middle finger.

Now I've seen this on YouTube and I've read about this in magazines but I've never had to do this.

Okay, I can do this. The only thing I'm wondering at this point is, am I sure I got all the barbs smashed down? No I'm not.

So I start trying to feed this hook back up another part of the meat in my finger and bring it back out and snip the hook end off.

Well this hurts like H-E-double-tooth-picks so I stop. Well maybe I should go to the doctor? I start thinking to myself. No, I'm not

going to pay some doctor 500 plus dollars to pull a hook out of my finger. So I start back doing the same thing I was doing but it still hurts so I stop.

Now that doctor thing is scratching the inside of my skull again. Should I go? No! I can do this.

Well I'm just going to have to trust myself and believe that I got that barb smashed down. So I grab the needle-nose and start pulling.

Not really pulling, just kind of like a lot of pressure and slowly curling the hook back out. There's no pain so I guess I got that barb smashed.

Any-hoot, I got it out with no pain.

Now I'm wondering........Have any of you had to force a hook back up through another part of you body so you could snip the end of and pull it out

with ease?

If you have that's "TOUGH".

Or could I just be reading the wrong stuff and watching the wrong stuff?

[tjtroester]

put a loop of mono around the bend of the hook. push down on the barb. give the mono a yank and pull the hook back out the hole it went in. man! you did it the hard way. timothy

[Paul Trybul]

I did help my father get a treble hook out after a small thrashing northern pike got it lodged in his hand. It stuck in the fleshy part between the thumb and index finger. It wasn't really in a spot where it made sense to push it all the way through and cut it off. I was surprised how hard I had to pull and how far the skin stretched before it pulled free. It sure makes you think about going barbless.

[Mike G]

It would have made a great video, Terry. Next time...but we hope there is not a next time.

 

I never had the pleasure of sinking a hook in me somewhere though it is just a matter of time before I come home with a fly in my ear. By the way you were lucky you were home. Here's three I have heard of. Guy catches a Muskie on a multi-hook plug. He's holding the fish to remove the hook when the Muskie thrashes and drives the free treble into his hand. Now he is hooked to a thrashing Muskie. Lucky his buddy was able to come to the rescue.

 

Second, guy gets a hook into his hand and decides to use the mono loop trick. It works, but the pain is so great that the guy passes out falling out of the boat and tipping the boat over in the process. They had to go back to the spot the next day, but they never did recovered all the tackle that sunk there.

 

Third, gal was not watching and sits down on a plug that was laying on the boat seat. One barb of the treble imbeds in her seat and the other imbeds in the fabric of the boat seat. I do not know how this one came out.

 

So, if you are going to drive a hook past the barb into your body, it is best to do it at home.

[Daniel Mc]

A number of years ago I was wet wading the Kish. Fishing a Big O crankbait, I had a 12 inch smallie swim between my legs and stick one of the trebles in my thigh. I reached down to grab the fish and stuck another hook in my finger, ouch! Finally managed to get my finger loose and the fish released. Still had the hook buried in my thigh though. It's amazing how elastic skin is! I used my pliers to push the hook and thumb and finger to push my skin over point of the hook before it broke thru the skin so I could cut the hook below the barb. Quite the ordeal!!

[Kev-mo]

I had a treble caught on my one piece refrigerware suit and once I got it popped out another treble (out of the three on the bait) popped into my hand. I can't remember if it was in my finger or hand. It was buried pretty good though. We cut the hook off and decided it would make some good video so I tried to push it out while my buddy was filming. I couldn't do it as it hurt too much so we had to quit filming while one guy held my arm/hand down and the other guy pushed the hook through. Soaked it and me in some alcohol and it was all good

[ronk]

TJ

You press down on the hookeye to pull the hook out not the barb. A cupl years ago I buried a size 12 bluegill spider in my forearm.It didn't hurt much so I tied on another one & kept fishing.It wasn't buried too deep.When I got home I pushed the hookpoint out passed the barb & snipped it off.

[tjtroester]

TJ

You press down on the hookeye to pull the hook out not the barb. A cupl years ago I buried a size 12 bluegill spider in my forearm.It didn't hurt much so I tied on another one & kept fishing.It wasn't buried too deep.When I got home I pushed the hookpoint out passed the barb & snipped it off.

 

yes! sorry, it was late. tjt

[Jim J]

Boundary Waters.

 

crankbait

 

small walley

 

Hooks goes into finger as I was lifting inside canoe. Thrashing while attached to my finger. Cut everything off but last remaining hook. Waited back in camp while the two dentists got back. The smart one got some rubber bands and wrapped them around my finger until blood was cut off and it was numb. Pushed the hook the rest of the way through. Only time in my life I had tears in my eyes. Oh and except when I saw Wicked for the 4th time.

[Norm M]

Back in the day when I was guiding and had a boat, guy's first two casts catch the side of the boat. Third cast hits a tree brabch. Fourth cast hits me square in the sun glass lens and down to my face right below the eye. Guy sets the hook. Brand new Mepps spinner, luckily only 1 barb in the flesh. His partner decides it's easier to push the barb back out thru the skin and cut it off. At that point I went with the program.

 

The guy whose lure it was and who hooked me says something about I owe him a new lure. I'll leave the rest to your imagination as this is a family oriented board.

[Fredmo]

This whole thread has me wincing. Reminds me of when my grandfather took me fishing, using cane poles, bobber and a worm. As we left, the poles were all together and he was in front and I followed behind, holding onto the poles. Sure enough, he was faster, and a hook caught in my finger.(can't remember which one, this was over 50 years ago) We cut the line, drove into town to see old Doc Cole, who delivered me when I was born, set my arm when I jumped out of the swing and broke it, and also for every cold, runny nose, or required shot. He just numbed it, ran it on through and cut it off.

Wasn't fun back then, and the thought now isn't much better.

[Mike G]

Don't this whole thing make the case for barbless hooks?

[Scott Ferguson]

While on a Canadian fly-in trip, one of our fishing partners took a large barbless treble through one side of his finger and out the other side. Being barbless, it slid right out. 2 days later, he could not even tell which finger got hooked.

On the other hand (so to speak) I once hooked a nice big smallie on a topwater. I was in a boat and I did not want to lift a 4 pound smallmouth over the side, so I used a net. The bass was still thrashing around in the net as they do, when I reached in to take him out. While still hooked to the Sammy, he got another hook caught in the net and a third hook deep in me. My boat partners were staring at me while I sat motionless for a good while. I was trying to figure out which hook to get out first. I was in the most danger but minor surgery might be tough with a net and an angry bass hanging on. While the blood was flowing, I figured out it was mine not the smallies. I grabbed my pliers with my free hand, popped the hook out of the bass and tossed him back in the water - I was mad I got no picture of him, got the Sammy out of the net, and noticed the treble was still in my hand up to the curve of the hook. The thrashing made have made the hole big enough, but I just used the pliers to remove the hook just like it was in the jaw of a bass, wiped the blood on my pants, and kept fishing.

[Steve Butler]

My last trip out on the Middle Fork last year, I took some of my "city friends" fishing....I was helping one of them unhook a decent rock bass when somehow I ended up with 2 treble hooks lodged all the way to the hook bend in my upper arm. There was a lot of blood involved, and I was darn close to passing out, but finally we got the darn things out. I immediately thereafter got out my pliers and mashed the barbs down on every single hook that was in my tackle box!

 

-SB