What are the worst you have heard of?

Mine happened this year, went down to the canal with my brother:smokin: on a wednesday night, mid-september. Just took my first cast when I heard a loud ""Thud" followed by a groan:lossinit:. My brother had slipped on a rock, and upon trying right himself, firmly entrenched himself in the rip rap. Broke both bones in his right forearm. :nailem:
We where in a spot at the canal where we had parked and hiked, and so we where about a mile from the truck. :sled:He was pretty woosy and I was pretty sure he was going to puke. :yak:
I walked him about a half mile to a spot that was close to the road, then I had to "jog" :walk:about a mile and a half in the other direction to get the car, as he was in no condition:yak4: for the hike "up" through the dark woods to get to the car.

It really sucked for him as we had to then drive all the way to the hospital. It sucked for me because my eel bag along with $20 worth of eels were sent out into the canal during the melee.

He is getting a set of Korkers for X-Mas.:angel:

I was fishing the Glades in Scituate, which if you don't know is basically just cliff like rocks. To make a long story short, I slipped on the rock and the first thing to hit the rock was my face. I then blacked out for a second and slid into the water. When I came up my brother was cracking up until he saw the blood pouring off my face. I broke my nose and had 4 stitches and got a pretty good concussion. The worst part of it was that I was in the emergency room all night for 10 hours.

This hopefully wiil be a great thread.I always am wondering how often and how bad someone is getting hurt fishing.For me i've been fairly lucky up till this point knock on wood.Lets see I was walking the little rocks in gansett it was low tide, I didnt own korkers at the time,and of course I thought I could walk on the rocks. I went down broke my rod in half', hit my head not to bad, banged up my elbow preetty good, cut my finger open,hurt my tailbone.I was down and out for almost 2 weeks this was in the fall during primetime fish.Next time I went out I stopped at wildwood outfitters and got a pair of korkers.

broken tail bone 2 tears ago while entering a river off the bank and slipped and landed on the tail bone . some serious pain for 1 week before I went and had them tell me yes its broke . an occational hook in the hand/finger

Two;
Indian river jetty walking through a washout. Put my foot on a rock that moved so rather than fall (smart) I decided to jump to another rock (stupid). I fell over backwards into the hole breaking three guides and banging my head and back badly. The waves filling the 'hole' didn't help either.

Shinnecock. Catching a super outgoing tide with 20-30# fish on read/white bombers. I was eager to release a fish since the fishing was so hot. I made a poor decision while grabbing the fish and the free trebel hook sunk into my thumb at the mid point which cause me to drop the fish which made the point act like a scapel opening my thumb to the tip. Fishing was over for that day.

Besides death while fishing, the worse injury I have heard of was a flying gaff the went into an anglers face and came out just below his ear while at the canyon 130 miles offshore. (heard it on the VHF radio when I saw the CG jet and helo making the run out to help them) It was one of those new " top shot" styles http://www.anglerscenter.com/acc_topshot_flyingaffs.htm


Personally, beside numerous hand injuries my worse was two sets of trebles in my face with one in my eye while fishing at night (2:00am) by myself at SW point BI in November...a long time ago. I was freakin cause the plug was still attached to my line and I couldn't walk back easily without falling, my eyes were shut. It was a nightmare...it turned out OK but at the time i thought I was going to be blind in one eye.

i know about a guy who hooked himself with a 3/0 treble through his finger. the barb prevented him pulling his out. it was deep and the muscle went into spasm. i don't think he had cutters to push it out. he went to the ER with waders on and a plug hanging off his finger. i believe he also continued fishing that night. :musc:

Falling on rocks and fish-handling injuries...
Take note: You won't hear too many, "I could have used a self-inflating floatation device," type stories. You have to live to tell that story.

Lots of cuts. Some long and deep.

I suppose the worst was falling into a big trench dug by clam diggers while out at Monamoy. It must have been 4 feet wide , 3 feet deep and 12 feet long. It was covered by the smallest amount of incoming tide and the sun glaring off the water surface. hurt my knee when I fell. Happened just a few minutes after being dropped off by the water taxi so i hade a long day ahead of me. stayed in deep water up to my chest to keep the weight down and fished (what else can you do out there?) :) .

I think falling amounts for most of the serious fishing accidents and injuries.

Aside from the typical falls etc.. This is my worst

http://eatthekitty.com/hooked.jpg

Brian, I am a veteran of at least 4 deep hook punctures over my fishing career, 3 of which needed to be removed at the hospital, 1 of which needed bolt cutters and two orderlies. However, that picture makes me cringe. That looks freakin' DEEP.:err::err:

Lets see I had a 600 pound swivel attached to tuna rip my finger to the bone. Remember Bronko? :poke: I also had a gaff decide to pierce my foot. Hurt more coming out than going in. Both accidents WERE avoidable and due to operator error.

I slipped, fell and broke the long finger nail on the pinky that I use to take wax out of my ear. Very traumatic. Took two weeks before I could clean my ears!!!! :jester: :uhoh:

I've also been pretty lucky. Fell a bunch of times and have numerous cuts and hook punctures.

My worst was at Scituate harbor a few years ago I had a small fish and was down on the jetty trying to pull it up. Of course I'm wearing sneakers and I'm not properly dressed at all, sure enough I fall on the rocks and just slammed my leg on the rock. Didn't break anything but I had a deep bone bruise that didn't go away for at least 2 months.

I've brought 2 people to the hospital before. One was my uncle who hooked his leg on the back cast while fly fishing on the vineyard. The other was when my dad tripped over the hitch on the truck with hot dog in hand and broke a bone in his elbow, though that wasn't fishing related he mostly eats and shoots the breeze when he's "fishing" these days.

I've had chronic lower back pain, scyiatica (sp??) for the past 7 years. I had been attributing it to poor posture, lifting my young kids (lowering a kid in the crib hurt like hell), bad mattress, overweight.....
I saw a few doctors , they prescribed meds, pain went away and then would come back a few weeks or months later. Strangely it always affected me in the spring to early winter.
So this year I went from fishing the surf to fishing from a boat...........NO back pain until I ventured into the surf again in the fall. I am 100% certain that wading on rocks in the surf is what brings on the back pain. I think its the way I balance against the waves or something.

Mary Ellen Moffett...she broke my heart.

One of the guys I fish with regularly got a 9" storm through the eyelid. No pics, but everything turned out ok for him after he bled a bit.

Myself, I've been lucky. One of the reasons I avoid plugs whenever possible is my fear of treble hooks.
I did swamp my boat in nauset inlet once. Fortunately we were in only three feet of water so the boat had little distance to travel to reach the bottom. After a bit of bailing we resumed power.:bshake:

this thread makes me want to take up golf :err:

my worst to date happened when I got tripped up walking into a spot one night, fell backwards and got stopped by a nice sharp rock sticking up that caught my fall around my tailbone. Rock ssaved my life as I woulda free fell about 7 more feet back of head first into rocks and floodwaters below. Was by myself. I woulda shown up well down river. Black and blue back for a month.

Lets see I had a 600 pound swivel attached to tuna rip my finger to the bone. Remember Bronko? :poke: I also had a gaff decide to pierce my foot. Hurt more coming out than going in. Both accidents WERE avoidable and due to operator error.

Yea, now that you mention it, that cut from the swivel was pretty freaking nasty. I'll take 90% of blame for that. After I leadered the line the 80lb tuna wanted to swim some more.... so I figured let it swim. Matt has seen enough tuna swim in his day and wanted to end the battle right then & there. Unfortunately Mr. pelagic never got the memo and two seconds later I could see the bone in Matt's index finger.:lasso:

I suffered some pretty nasty bruises from falls.

disclocated shoulder - I am very lucky that's all it was.


http://brianmullaney.com/fishing/albums/mullaney/brianmullaneysept212006.gif

couple hooks realy suxed but not this bad

http://www.getbentflorida.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/181

Snagging pogies in Wellfleet Harbor from a canoe. When we got our fill, paddled to the Wharf where the Ice-Cream shop is now. And I jumped out, barefoot onto the oysters. It was like dancing on broken glass. I never saw so much blood.Took a year for my feet to completely heal.
Put on two pair of socks and taped them up, went fishing and got skunked altho I had one monster hit. Finished the weekend with fileted feet and a broken heart.:laugha:

Fell while fishing in the rocks and broke/cracked my kneecap. Korkers don't alway help. Hurt like heck for months.

The worse I've seen fishing occurred about 20-years ago when a boat pulled up next to mind asking me to radio the Coast Guard that they were coming in with an injuried person needing help. The guy had both treble hooks from a plug buried deep into his face. Who ever was casting it must have really pulled cause his face was really torn up.

2 labor days ago fishing in Maine. I tell my son be very careful of the black colored rock. No korkers. Not 30 seconds later I take a nasty fall. Just touched the back of my head to the rock, snapped my custom rod in 2 pieces. Hurt like hell. Gathered myself up after a few seconds and got up, went home. Bad swelling in my neck for almost a month with nasty loss of motion. Swelling went away and replaced by pain. Xrays and mri 3 months later show degenerative arthritis at the c6/c7 joint in the base of the neck. I'm a Celebrex junky for the rest of my life now. Doc says it will only get worse. I can't drive as much now and have lost about 1/2 the movement in my neck side to side. Neck sounds like crickle crackle crunch in my ears every time it's moved now.

Lesson learned the hard way...wear you frickin corkers even if your only going fishing for a few hours!

This is a pretty common occurrence the doc says it's due to the trauma and scar tissue of whatever happened there. Been through 11 pillows now trying to find something to sleep on.

As I recall (which tends to be iffy these days), a guy out of Falmouth shark fishing at night had a rod go off, the line go slack, and a 300lb Mako come leaping into the cockpit. Hit the guy in the shoulder and I think it took 100+ stitches to close him up. Trashed the cockpit and fighting chair as well.

Multiple hook shanks to the barb in fingers not sinking the barb just enough to hurt.Slipped one time in Gansett on a rock while not wearing corkers.Shin bled for a while and pain went away after a week.One good fall was all I needed to learn my lesson.Corkers are a must on rocks.The hooks on the other hand are no problem unless the barb sinks in which I haven't experienced yet......but since we're on the topic I was fishing a local inner bay beach and a small rush of schoolies come in.Ten yards away a guy yells fish on so I decided I'd go help him land it if he needed it.Bad idea will never make that mistake again.The guy is grabbing for the plug,has no light and no pliers.I said hey I got a lip-grip right here and some pliers man hold on a sec.....he says nah I got it reached down fish flopped and buried treble deep in his palm.Fish then fell of the hook looking up at him laughing I'm sure.This guy was screaming swearing.Yelling about tetnus shots and whatnot.I felt bad....but also got a good look at the plug he was using and since he left this spot I put one on like he had and banged a couple while he made his way to his car yelling.I thought I learned my lesson about helping others until the next time I was pointing out a blitz to a guy in a boat.I was on the beach.He saw it alright but forgot to follow the buoys out of the inlet and hit a rock with his boat.Now I wouldn't help a blind man cross the street.I'm done with helping people.

2 labor days...................... Been through 11 pillows now trying to find something to sleep on.

Someone on this site posted something, a short while ago [1 month +-] about a pillow that he used to help him sleep. Maybe you read it - if not, maybe someone else remembers the post.

A couple of years ago I was fishing danny's on a submerged bar maybe waist deep, hooked a mid-teen sized fish and got it in so that it was lying nice and calm right in front of me. The danny was hooked on the outside of the fish so I grabbed the leader to try and slide my hand down to the front of the plug and the fish rolled and embeds one of the exposed trebles in my leg. Now I'm trying to pull the hook out and the fish decides its time for a second effort and tries to go for a swim..

The fish is thrashing around and I manage to get the treble out of my leg but not thru my neoprene boots, and as quick as you can wink the fish sinks it back into me a second time. 2 nice punctures 1/2 an inch apart.. I had no plans to keep a fish that night, but I ate that one... :laugha:

Do plug building injuries count ? I've had a couple of those doing stupid things in the shop...

I have a pemenant memory of my first 40lb striper....after gaffing the fish it lay motionless on the floor of the boat, as I reached down to remove the plug from the fishes mouth, she began thrashing wildly sinking a tine from one of the trebles on the plug into my finger, ... the first treble snagged on my index finger , the tine was ripped free by the thrashing fish, the remaining trebles then became inbedded in my forearm and palm, even at the age of 17 I knew enough ( thanks to my fathers preaching) to carry linesmans pliars in my boat, after subduing the fish, I then cut off the hooks and pulled them through, I cut my "T" shirt into bandages and drove myself to the hospital where I recieved a total of 23 stitches to close the 3 wounds, after leaving the hospital I was young (and stupid) enough to drive back to plum island and get my picture taken!... to this day, I have the utmost respect for a fish wearing a plug for a lip ring!

... to this day, I have the utmost respect for a fish wearing a plug for a lip ring!


Trebles? Read my above response, they petrify me.

A couple more treble stories:

Late 80's on pleasant bay we were wading the bar off claflin landing (before the cut in the outer beach took place, rendering the spot unproductive) with real good current going across it. The place was a fish magnet on a dropping tide w/new moon a couple nights away...the sand eels would hang in the eddy below the bar, and the fish there knew it. Fishing was fast and furious and one of my buddies, wishing to remain undetected, attempts to unhook a 30 inch fish with no light and winds up with a 5 1/4” rebel in his hand. Panic ensues and now he’s faint and light headed, almost puking, with the thrashing fish attached to his hand and we need to cross the waist deep channel with five knots of current to get back to shore. Long story short, we make it back to shore and get the fish off. Cape Cod Hospital removed the plug. My buddy, during the tense moments, dropped his rod right into the water, which we later retrieved on the slack tide…it didn’t go too far, fortunately.

Around the same time (late 80’s) another one of my googan buddies (hell, I was a relative newbie too with only a few seasons under me) is fishing the race with me. Good 15-20kt southwest wind in your face and it’s about two hours before dead low water, late June. :drool: We got into decent numbers of fish with the 7” super strike needles. That plug had some legendary years on the Race from 1985 to 1988. Anyways, trying my best to help educate my friend, I informed him on a few things prior to leaving the truck for our walk to race bar:
1. Only pussies need flash lights
2. Don’t tell anyone anything
3. Don’t lose my %$%$%$%$ing needlefish, it’s the only spare I have.

After catching a few fish, I look behind me and there is a hump on the sand. It’s my friend and he’s got the rear treble of the needlefish buried in his hand. Pulling out my flashlight,:laugha: I ask him why he didn’t have one. Funny thing is neither of us admitted to having one at first, but were both equipped with them. His reason for keeping his off was a good one. “I didn’t want to attract a crowd,” he says. Sooooooo, I give him the options. …..Either bite down on this piece of driftwood while Dr. Mike performs surgery and saves the life of a precious striper plug, or we walk back to the truck and drive to CCH in Hyannis to have it removed and miss out on the fishing. :devil:
He opts for the former, and fortunately it was a only a couple tense seconds before we pushed the hook barb through his finger and cut it off with a pair of rusty pliers. We got back to fishing and the missing rear treble had no impact on my friends plug as the fish were quite accommodating.

Aside from the typical falls etc.. This is my worst

http://eatthekitty.com/hooked.jpg
O.K. Brian you win!

I am never gping to complain after reading what some of you guys have had happen to you.

Wow! there are some wild stories here!

I have had the usual hook in hand episode. The worst (but mild compared to most) was the time I went Shad fishing down to the river....down a very steep and VERY "straight down into the river" hill full of very few trees and lots of busted up shale. naturally the shale busted uder my foot I lost all footing and I went for a ride. from my ass down was black and blue and my arms looked like bloody hamburg. Was pretty banged up but didnt care because I prepared myself for going in the drink and yet somehow I managed not to! I have never felt so thankful as I did when I stopped just short of the river that day!!!!

A few years back I was casting for bass from a boat around 10:00pm with a buddy and his then 11 year old son. While we were drift fishing when a lobster pot wrapped around the propeller of my friend's boat. With the tide/wind pushing us to the east, water started filling up the stern of the boat. Just as we noticed that the boat was filling with water, my buddy yelled "grab a life-jacket". I did, grabbed my cell phone and wallet that were at my feed in a small soft cooler and within seconds the boat flipped over. My buddy and his son were clingining onto the hull of the boat (now upside down) and I yelled to them to follow me towards shore ...about 150yards or so. When I turned around to check on them, the boat was under water. I yelled out again....follow me I know where we are.

About 1 minute later, both the father and son are screaming to me..."Come back-were' having problems". Meanwhile, I was making decent progress towards shore and I'm thinking to myself "we're all having problems" so I turned around in the water and I flashed them with my flashlight telling them to follow my light and stay on my tail. I tried calling my home from the cell phone to say goodbye to my wife and tell her and my daughter that I might not make it. I heard my daughters voice, but she could'nt here me or my distress call to call emergency services - just before the cell phone died out. Anyway, I managed to make it to shore. My buddy laid on his back and his son sort of used hiim like a kick-board to get them both to shore about 5 minutes after me.

What I didn't realize is that my buddy couldn't swim and both he and his 11 year old son were wearing long rubber boots when the boat flipped and that's why they were screaming "come back...we're having problems" This I learned once we were all out of the water safe on land.

I've had nightmares of him calling my name to "come back..were're having problems" for months. Actually, I still think about it, but don't talk about it much, but I thought it was appropriate for this thread.

At the end, we were a little banged-up, but forunatley all made it to shore. It kind of makes you think differently about fishing.

Numbskull hurt my feelings once.

Thank god everybody survived.

And these are more reasons that I fish barbless - when I drill one into my hand you pull it out. Haven't hit any other vital area yet, but I'm sure it's coming.

OK this one isn't about me, and I've been waiting for him to contribute, but he must be shy. About 4 years ago there had been a big school of bass loitering off the back beach, 3 out of every 4 mornings for 2 weeks or so you were guaranteed 4-6 20 lb +'s on pencil poppers. About 30 yards from me is this guy who've I've seen before but don't know. He's got a 25 lber or so that has inhaled his (if I remember right) yellow canal special so the rear treble is way down it's throat, and the belly treble barely coming out. He reaches in to try to free the plug and ends up with the belly treble in the thumb of his left hand, inside of the bass's mouth. Big thrashing bass, hooked by thumb. A couple of us come over to assist, and the hook is just buried in the meat. A pair of side cutters eventually cuts it off, and he's off to the Outer Cape Health Services. About an hour later I look over, and can you believe it? he's already back. Thumb all bandaged up looks like a baseball bat.

And the legend of Crazy (known hereabouts as Rappin') Mike was born.

Almost forgot my broken finger about 7 years ago at the Canal. Busted it shoving it up into the reel spool while trying to break free from the bottom. Later that night , still fishing with the broken finger , it gave out and I dropped a bass i was lipping and it broke my rod. The rod snapped and wipped me across the back hard. I ended the night with a broken finger , broken rod and a big red long welt across my back.

glad that doesn't happen too often!! :)