Last Sunday I was at my parents garage sink getting ready to clean the catfish I had caught at Willard about an hour earlier.
I cut the gills and set the fish back in the sink to bleed out. The fillet knife had some blood on it so i stuck it in the running water and run my fingers down the blade to clean the blood off. At that moment the fish decided to give off his dying bit of energy in the form of some flopping around. Bad news for me! He stuck his pectoral spine into the top side of my left forearm. The force of the fish hitting me knocked my left arm into my right hand. Yes, the hand holding the knife.
Now I’ve got a one inch long very deep gash on the top of my forearm and a half inch long deep gash on the bottom of my forearm. Everything happened so fast and wasn’t thinking straight so in my mind I thought I’d just stuck the fillet knife all the way through my arm. I’m bleeding profusely and don’t know if I’ve cut an artery or what. I yell for my dad who had just left the garage after checking out my catch. He ran back into the garage and sees the blood all over the floor and makes sure I can keep pressure on it before running into the house to get a towel to wrap it up.
We get the arm wrapped up, me loaded in the truck, and head to the hospital.
Once there we realize there’s no way I could have stuck the knife all the way through the arm since the cut on the bottom is only as long as the tip of the knife and the cuts aren’t parallel.
The doc does some tests cleans it out and stitches it up. He comes to the conclusion that the muscle covering had been cut away from the muscle(this is why I was bleeding so bad) and that I’ll have a couple painful weeks with little movement in my fingers upcoming as the muscle covering regenerates.
So here I am typing this one handed with eight stitches on the top side of my arm(fish wound), three on the bottom side(knife wound), and wearing a splint to immobilize my hand. All from a stupid 19" catfish! The pain is down to a bearable level and some movement in my fingers is back, but holy hell what a bizarre turn my weekend took Sunday morning.
Sounds like if it wasn’t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all.
I fully understand how things can go bad quick. In the last year both me and my best fishing buddy have had to cut hooks out of our fingers. A four pound Strawberry rainbow got me and a Willard Walleye got him. Hope ya have a quick turn around and back out on the water soon!
With that fish on Sunday I finally have a limits worth of Kitty fillets in the freezer. I’m going to celebrate the day I get the stitches out and splint off with some smoked kitty fillets.
Sometime you eat the bear sometimes the bear eats you…
Its on old saying,couldnt resist.
Sorry you got hurt. But it will make a good fishing story. And has.
Well accidents happen. I think we all have had one sort of accident or another that will remain with us (mentally) for the rest of our lives. Some are worse than others and while I’m sure you are in a ton of pain… pain is only temporary and I’d think you will recover 100%.
I think in some cases in life, we have to learn the hard way. I cut my nail / nailbed while tuning my bicycle… wasn’t paying attention and it got caught in a spinning wheel. Very painful but thankfully my fingernail regrew at least.
Anyhow like I said sometimes ya gotta learn the hard way. I guess you did it for the rest of us this time[sly] I know after my bike accident I keep a better eye on my fingers and after your little incident I’ll keep a better eye on my filleting situations.[sly]
Sounds like if it wasn’t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all.
I fully understand how things can go bad quick. In the last year both me and my best fishing buddy have had to cut hooks out of our fingers. A four pound Strawberry rainbow got me and a Willard Walleye got him. Hope ya have a quick turn around and back out on the water soon!
I’ve been lucky in this department too - over the years I have yet to hook myself really good. Sure I’ve had pokes and nips that drew blood, but I haven’t jammed a hook into flesh yet. If you fish for a long enough period of time though it is bound to happen.
Especially with feisty fish like trout. This summer I almost had it happen with a wiper in my float tube. He flopped and came very close to sinking a treble into my leg.
Sounds like one of those “O Sh*yeouch” moments, and a double doozy. Sorry to hear it - fast healing to ya.
So you didn’t get dad to quick grab the camera along with the towel to wrap it up? Wondered if you’d posted the deep-nasty! Catfish in one hand, blood drenched arm ta boot.
So sounds like the cat poked ya and ran, and then fell back out? Those spines are gnarly - and they’ve got “teeth” on em. Glad you didn’t have to pull it out. Bet the knife cut was sharp and clean - that should stitch right up good.
Those buggers are pretty tough cats. Have used a heavy rubber mallet on heads, and still had 'em twitching around. And I always worry over those pokey parts! Wonder that I don’t hear more tales of tubes getting popped.
"Wonder that I don’t hear more tales of tubes getting popped. "
**'Cause most of us tubers are smart enough to break off the pectoral and dorsal spines as soon as we bring a cat on board. **
You should know how to hold a cat to neutralize its thrashings and then use a stout pair of pliers or sidecutters to remove the spines from any fish you plan to keep. That reduces the potential for puncturing either you or your floaty things…and also makes it safer and easier to fillet them later.
That doesn’t mean that there are never any “unplanned” air losses from catfish…or other spiny critters. They are uncanny in their abilities to whip around or fall onto your tube. And just like a piece of buttered bread always falling on the “wrong” side, spiny fish always land spines down.
Man! I feel for you those catfish stabs hurt like he–. I read somewhere that catfish secrete some substance from tha base of their spines that really sends the “stabee’s” pain receptors into orbit. I know first hand that the pain sure lasts a long time. I diligently follow ol’ TubeDude’s teaching about removing those spines before putting them on a stringer or in the cooler. You hurry & heal up now.
"Wonder that I don’t hear more tales of tubes getting popped. "
'Cause most of us tubers are smart enough to break off the pectoral and dorsal spines as soon as we bring a cat on board****.
I was a slow learner. Its usually big bluegillls or WB for me. They swim under the tube and spike the bottom while I’m trying to drag them out backward.
I fixed it thus:
I use a longer light rod instead of the tiny ultralight I used to, so I can lift them when they get close.
I bought a shallow net. Never bothered w/a net before. Easier to get small spiky fish out of a shallow net.
Bought a tube of outdoor glue, can’t remember brand right now, but the thick silicon-based, sticks-to-anything-glue, like Elmer’s Stix-All, and coated the bottom of the nylon tube cover. Made it a little harder to roll up fir storage, is all.
**'Cause most of us tubers are smart enough to break off the pectoral and dorsal spines as soon as we bring a cat on board. **