11-10-2009, 07:11 AM
I've been hooked deep a couple of times. The first time about a 12" bass hit a Pop-R and was hooked by the front hook. He flipped out of my hand and all of his weight buried the tail hook to the bend right in the crook between my thumb and pointer finger. The worst part was that I was maybe 13 and so my friend and I had been dropped off to fish. I still had a few hours before my mom was supposed to get us, and I couldn't really hold the rod. My friend kept nailing them and I just had to watch. That thing was not coming out. I tried hacking at it with my cheap Swiss Army knockoff, but it wasn't going to happen. I had to go to instacare and get the thing cut out. Strangely it didn't hurt at all.
Another time I was using a dry/dropper rig for trout and a decent brown took my dry. He slipped out of my hand while I was trying to pick him up, and he buried the dropper deep into my finger. I didn't have wire cutters with me, so I pushed the barb through the other side of my finger and mashed it with my hemostats and then pulled it out. The bad thing is that the material wrapped pretty far down the bend of the hook, so I had to really push and work the point out the other side. It was kind of unpleasant. I mostly fish catch and release, but I ate that fish.
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Another time I was using a dry/dropper rig for trout and a decent brown took my dry. He slipped out of my hand while I was trying to pick him up, and he buried the dropper deep into my finger. I didn't have wire cutters with me, so I pushed the barb through the other side of my finger and mashed it with my hemostats and then pulled it out. The bad thing is that the material wrapped pretty far down the bend of the hook, so I had to really push and work the point out the other side. It was kind of unpleasant. I mostly fish catch and release, but I ate that fish.
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