alun j. Posted August 10, 2004 Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 having spent two hours at A & E having a 1 / 0 hook [ deeply embedded in the end of my finger ] removed ...... avec une petit peau malade........ feel quite strongly about flattening all the barbs on the hooks in my tackle box !!! Nearly 40 years fishing and this has never happened before !!!!!! Read all about it for others....... then it happens when you least expect it .... lovely day , fishing just getting good......you land a fish, unhook and into the coolbox, turn arou8nd as a little wave moves the boat, feel the prick as a hook just catches you ........... but the other end of the trace has caught around a bucket and the movement has pulled it in a bit deeper......... past the barb !!!!!!! what a pain this is !! .... cause you can't get it out like when it gets caught in your jumper or landing net !! Should we carry local anaesthetic in our first aid kits ??? 'Pushing thro' ...... or cutting out ??? .......hook in situ = no pain....... BUT..either remedy = excruciating !! So ...... packed up early ......and sought help.......with hook sticking out of finger Phoned GP to try and avoid long wait at hospital....... no nurse, can you come back tomorrow? !!!!!!!!!!!!! [ how big would finger be in the morning ??] Well done to hospital......... dot all 'i' s, cross all 't's ....... X-rays, the works....... and quite a struggle to get a chemically sharpened needle- point 1 / 0 out of a very tough finger [ they couldn't push it though...... had to cut it out]. SO>..............flatten barbs or not ???????? Probably not !! bass are so easy to lose with those bony mouths !!! bitten and shy.......come more readily. Good fishing everyone ! Alun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newboy Posted August 10, 2004 Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 I have most of my hooks' barb pushed down with a pair of pliers. It is something I'd always done since I wdid course fishing as a young lad. The first time I'd seen someone who had a hook embedded in themselves was when I was 11, in an ambulance being taken to hospital with a broken wrist after I fell over rollerskating. 2 young men flagged down my ambulance and asked if we can take them to hospital as one of them had a biggish hook hooked into his thigh.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swainiac Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Alun, one trick that I have employed whilst pike fishing on an Irish lough, was to snip off the hook so it doesn't snag, then wrap up the finger in tape, I could hapily fish on and then had the hook removed at A&E in Belfast City. Regards, Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Been close to doing the same thing a few times. When targeting fish that I intend to release, I've been squashing the barbs for a while now. I have lost a couple of fish, but difficult to know if this was due to no barbs or my own incompetance. There's no doubting that the fish are easier to unhook, though, and I will carry on squashing the barbs. But sods law will dicate that I will hook myself when using a hook with a barb!! Hope your pinky gets better soon, Alun. Bob F Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 I did this a couple of years ago- never too old to learn new tricks after scolding myself- "how could i be so stupid?" i fished on for 3 hours then went to E & E you don't half feel like a twat going in with a hook in your finger, the only thing hurt was my pride. they numbed the finger cut off the eye and pulled it through Paul J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swainiac Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Bob, just cos you're fishing barbless, you shouldn't lose fish if the tension is kept on. I've been using the blue partidge trebles for pike since they hit the market XX years ago! these trebles consist of one barbed and two barbless hooks giving clean unhooking for catch and release Very few fish get lost, and Pike are well reknowed for head shaking when hooked. I dont know if the larger sea hooks are available in micro barbs yet, but that might be another tackle breakthrough. regards, Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam F Posted August 11, 2004 Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Alun - full sympathy!! I too have been through this - and I wasnt even fishing at the time! In the garage one wet sun morning, tidying up....I used to keep my pike snap tackles (2x trebles on a wire trace) hanging from the wooden shelves (dont any more!!). Anyway, was re-arranging some tins on the shelf with my hands in between the hanging traces, when someone called my name - turning around and starting to walk away I felt the sharp pain of a 1/0 treble in the side of my middle finger! Christ!...did I shout!!!! I tried all sorts - the vice, pliers, forceps, gently, hard - you name it, the beast wasnt moving! - then the addrenalin wore off, the pain started and I was off to A&E for 4 hours!! I think it is just an occupational hazard of fishing - and the law of avrages says that the more you go fishing, or at sometime in your life it is likely to happen to you. I crush the barbs when tope fishing, but personally I'd rather risk having a hook in my hand and not loosing that double figure bass!!!! - But maybe I'm mad! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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