Apr 02 2008
When You Catch Yourself…
When I was about ten years old, I was out fly fishing on the river behind our house. My day was wonderful. Trout were biting, hatches were rising, and it seemed as though everything was just grand. Unfortunately, this beautiful state of affairs was brutally interrupted by a sheering pain that ran down my hand.
I still, to this day, am not quite sure exactly what happened, but through some horrific means, the long, barbed hook was embedded in the palm of my hand.
In tears, I stormed into the house bleeding, in search for my father, the one person who I was sure would have a painless way of removing the unwanted hook.
Yet again, my hopes were shattered when he told me that the only way to remove the hook would be to put a string around the shank bend, and pull it out the way it came in. That started my search for a better way.
From the house I continued my search through the camp ground that own family owned. The only problem was, every great fisherman that I stopped to talk to told me the exact same thing, “just put string around the shank, and pull it out the way out.”
Reluctantly, yet driven by the pain in my hand, I returned to the house, and approached my dad, already standing there with a short piece of tippet material in his hand.
In a short moment, the hook was out, the tears had stopped, the pain was gone, and I was back to fishing. I say all this to say that I think that this one of the most effective methods to removing hooks that are embedded in ones hand.
There is another method that involved pushing the hook through the skin the rest of the way, then cutting off barb, and pulling it back through. That method is great for removing hooks from fingers, but is ineffective on hooks that are in larger areas of flesh.
To most effectively remove a hook by the first means, ice the skin around the hook, then move the hook so it aligns with the hole it went into. Loop a small loop of tippet material, or other strong string around the shank bend, and give it one steady pull. I know that this method will definitely help many of you, and it will save you all a lot of pain in the future.
