Worst fishing injuries.

[UserRemoved1]

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.

[numbskull]

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.

[thortum]

Originally Posted by #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&

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.

[Diggin Jiggin]

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...

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

[Rockfish9]

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!

[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.

[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.