Worst fishing injuries.

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by Rockfish9

... 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. 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, 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.
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.

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by BrianS

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

O.K. Brian you win!

[Swimmer]

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

[Jenn]

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!!!!

[fcap60]

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.

[Flaptail]

Numbskull hurt my feelings once.

[ilovetwofish]

Thank god everybody survived.

[2na]

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.

[Saltheart]

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!!