Paging Super Dave

[Ham]

It suddenly occurred to me that I need to get Dave to spill his secrets on how he keeps his hands in shape to fish extended stretches of time.

My hands take a beatdown on a single fishing trip. They are borderline non functional sometimes  after four day fishing trip. The constant wet/dry cycle. Sun exposure. The seemingly unavoidable pokes, cuts, scrapes from fish, fishing line, baits, and other environmental factors add up. I cant imagine how he keeps going day after day catching fish after fish.

I've seen in his fishing photos that he paints cuts with a topical betadine, but I wonder what else he does.

here's what I try to do right now. Many if not most of my troubles could be avoided if I was more diligent. I try to remember to use a hand lotion after I am off the water. At times, I will use a hot Epsom salt soak to remove inflammation and kill some of the bacterial growth. One the first day after a wound, I will bubble out the wound with Hydrogen Peroxide. After a good hand washing, a thin layer of triple antibiotic ointment covered by a good band aid. Doing this stuff before bedtime gives your body a few hours to heal while you are inactive. That seems to really work for me.

 

[Macsimus]

Perhaps, if you weren't catching so many fish you wouldn't have such issues. I feel for ya, guy. 

[Ham]

The struggle is real.

 

[Mitch f]

If you really want to make it work, get some latex gloves and just soak your hands in Vaseline and put the gloves on overnight....done

[MOsmallies]

I have the same issue Ham... I just use O'Keefe's Working Hands in the evenings and it heals my cuts and cracks much quicker than when I use nothing.

[snagged in outlet 3]

20 minutes ago, Mitch f said:

If you really want to make it work, get some latex gloves and just soak your hands in Vaseline and put the gloves on overnight....done

This works.  I used to skin leather seats at General Motors.  Talk about wet dry cycle.

They would steam the seat covers to loosen them up.  We would skin them while they were warm and wet.  I used to tell people about working the assembly line.  The first 10 or 20 thousand weren't too bad but after that my hands hurt bad.   Your skin would get soft from the heat and moisture and when pulling on the leather it felt like your skin was coming off. 

Then they would dry out severely and crack.  Lube em up at bedtime and put on the gloves.

[HardHead]

+1 on the okeefes for dry hands.  

[dtrs5kprs]

Not betadine. New Skin, that for some odd reason has turned yellow. Basically I shellac the bad splits closed. 

Betadine. Pfff...hospital types.

[abkeenan]

1 hour ago, dtrs5kprs said:

Not betadine. New Skin, that for some odd reason has turned yellow. Basically I shellac the bad splits closed. 

Betadine. Pfff...hospital types.

New skin. Pfff....sissy types. I just use the same Locktite Gel Glue I use on my Neds and glue the split back together.

[96 CHAMP]

on top of all that try fishing with RA in your hands, you don't notice it to bad if you keep your hands working, its when you stop when it really gets to ya. Good luck fishing