Back in the early 1960s when I was not yet a teenager my uncle from Virginia came down to visit and fish every summer. One year he and I were fishing at Adams’ Pond and I was using my newest bait, a Creme worm with three hooks rigged in it. Somehow on one cast in the small 12 foot wooden boat I managed to hook my uncle in his left ear.
There was no way he was going to let a 10 year old try to get the hooks out and there was no way he was going to stop fishing, so for the rest of the morning he had that worm dangling from his ear as he cast. I don’t remember how many fish he caught but I will never forget the sight of my worm hanging in his ear with blood around it.
Fortunately, I guess, I have gotten hooks in me many more times than in my partners. One time when I was about 17 and fishing alone from our big outdrive ski boat. I had gone way back in a cove and was throwing a Little Cleo spoon to bushes. When the spoon got hung in a bush I jerked and it came flying back.
That day was hot and I was fishing without a shirt. A Little Cleo has a treble hook on it. I felt a thump on my stomach and looked down to see the shiny silver spoon stuck to me. I could see two hooks of the treble pressed against my skin but the third hook was out of sight - in me.
I think I must have just had biology in high school and knew about all those organs down there. Back then they were near the surface, I did not have the padding around my middle I have now. I worried about hurting something important.
After clipping the line I cranked up and ran in to the dock. My mother was there and she looked at the spoon and said “We are going to the emergency room.” I didn’t argue. They cut the hook out and I went back to the lake - and back to fishing. That hook never hurt, as is often the case with a hook in an area where you don’t have many nerve endings.
My worst experience with a hook came in a club tournament about five years ago. I had met Jim online in my chat room. He lived in north Georgia near Hartwell and liked to bass fish. One Friday before a night tournament at West Point my partner called to say he could not go. I was in my chat room and mentioned that, and asked Jim if he would like to fish with me.
We arranged to meet at Glass Bridge Ramp and talked for a few minutes before the tournament. Jim and I hit it off like we had been old friends even though we had never met. At 5:00 PM we took off for nine hours of fishing.
The very first place we stopped I hooked a bass on a big Bandit crankbait. When the fish got near the boat I tried to lift it in and the rod loaded up. The fish came flying toward me and I threw up my right hand to protect my face. Suddenly I had an 11 inch spotted bass on the rear treble hook of the plug hanging from my wrist where the front treble hook had buried.
Our first action was to make the fish stop moving, then get it off the hook. We managed to cut the split ring holding the hook in my wrist and we tried to pull the hook out. It would not move. Even with a cord looped under it and me holding the hook flat, it was solid.
We ran in to Highland Marina where two game wardens looked at the hook in my arm. They called the EMTs to come check it out and I really hated to admit I was the person who wrote articles for Georgia Outdoor News when they asked. I would have much preferred no one knew that fact!
The EMTs said they could not do anything and told me to go to the emergency room. Jim and I ran back down to Glass Bridge and he told me to take his truck since mine had a trailer attached. He stayed in my boat and fished until I got back.
At the hospital there had been three wrecks so I sat for five hours waiting for the doctor. I entertained the nurses by wiggling my ring finger and making the hook move around. When the doctor go to me he said the hook had gone under the tendon running through my wrist to my finger. If we had damaged it I might have lost use of that finger.
The doctor borrowed some wire cutters from the maintenance guy and cut the hook off and got it out. It never hurt except when he was cutting down to get to it. He bandaged me up and I headed back to the lake. Jim and I fished for two more hours until the tournament was over. I never caught a keeper bass that night - that was the worst thing that happened to me!
Be careful where you put hooks when you go fishing.
