Hook In Finger (Picture Attached)

[Tully]

Title says it all. On TRL point 25 at 5:30 this morning to get some top water bites. 2nd fish of the day was about 1.5 pounds. As I removed the final hook of the Spook he flounced and stuck it right in my middle finger. Couldn't budge it either way so off I go to Cassville ER. This wasn't their first rodeo as they had a "Fish Hook Tray" set up. Shot to numb finger was worse part.

It happens quick. Keep your guard up.

Tully

[Feathers and Fins]

Feel your pain, just went through it a couple weeks ago. Pushed it through fixed it up and back to fishing.

[fishinwrench]

I saw the ER "procedure" for hook removal once.....Not ME, Not EVER!

I'll do it myself, thank you very much.....and spend the money saved to buy more hooks (a lifetime supply at that).

Did Penn &Teller ever do a BS episode on "doctors" ? If not they should have.

[rps]

Been to the ER twice now. I own and use a boga grip with needle nose pliers - every time.

[Mitch f]

Just push it on through, save the hospital money. Or do the shoestring trick, Al Agnew is the expert!

[ness]

Why am I here?

[bfishn]

Looks more to me like...

Hook in picture (finger attached)

:-)

[Al Agnew]

That one would have been a little tough to get out by yourself, but with a buddy who knew how, you could have gotten it out with the string trick. Whenever somebody posts about getting a hook stuck into themselves, I repeat the same thing...LEARN THE STRING TRICK! In most instances the trick works like a charm, it's MUCH less painful, and much less dangerous, than pushing the hook on through, and it saves a trip to the emergency room, where the way the doctors remove hooks is downright barbaric. I can't stress this enough...if you fish, you have to learn this method of hook removal. I've posted about the technique on OA before with illustrations, and I've removed four hooks from my own anatomy (a thumb, a big toe, a calf muscle, and an arm) and three from other people (hand and arms), and every time it has worked perfectly.

Here's a pretty good video I found with a quick search on Utube...

The guy has a good idea to carry along the piece of cord just for this, and also every angler should carry a set of wire cutters to cut off the hooks from the lure. You really don't want to have the hook attached to a lure with another treble hanging off it when you do the trick. But you can use doubled over fishing line, or your shoelace (shoelace works VERY well), or any piece of line or cord you have handy.

Since you need two hands to do it, it's difficult to remove a hook from your own hand or arm, but doable. The hard part is getting the pressure on the eye of the hook. You have to be pushing the eye of the hook toward the buried barb when you jerk it out. When I stuck one in my thumb, I was able to use my index finger on the same hand to do the pushing, but when I stuck one in my arm, I had to wiggle around to where I could get the eye of the hook against the gunwale of my canoe and push my arm so that the gunwale forced the eye toward the barb.

The way the hook was in your finger, it would have been tricky for you to get pressure on the eye in the right direction, but a buddy could have done it pretty easily.

[moguy1973]

Here's a pretty good video I found with a quick search on Utube...

What. Did. I. Just. Watch.

That dude has some huge threshold for pain or some thick skin.

[fishinwrench]

For me the big key is to get it out ASAP using a little adrenaline to my advantage. If I wait too long I'll get queasy and might actually black out.

The worst I ever had was directly under my thumbnail with a Johnson Silver minnow spoon (big gnarly hook with a big gnarly barb) and there was a pork strip attached for extra salt injection qualities.

I just grabbed the spoon and ripped it out as quick as I could. It hit a nerve and there was no way in hell I could have waited even 10 seconds, much less the time it would have taken to walk back to my truck and drive somewhere.