Removing fish hooks

[Jan Hertzen]

That hurts to watch.

It gave me the willies. . . Bring out the Bactine!

 

[last wild human]

the easiest way is to de barb your hooks, what's the worst that can happen you might loose a fish but they come right out of your finger if there de barbed .

 

[mcpltret]

adding to dorado’s initiation of this topic,
back in the day….roland martin advertised on
his fishing show a similar hook removal via a kit
you could purchase. it was called - “doc watson’s
look-no-hook“. it’s still a utube video w/many demo’s.
since i’m not in a confessional, i would just bet being impaled
deeply w/a large treble hook, which also had an irritated
striper hooked & is flopping around relentlessly, could change
the atmosphere in the boat. just a supposition.

 

[John P Funk]

you might loose a fish

I have a hard enough time keeping smallmouth on the line with a barbed hook, and it's been about 45 years since I received a hook to the flesh. I think I'll keep the barbs and the smallmouth, but to each their own.

 

[Dorado]

I buried a #4 treble hook in my finger from a crankbait in a tournament in Spencers camp (San Juan) from a 1.5 lb largemouth. I remembered I had a hook remover kit in my boat and thought, oh this will be easy. My tournament partner had the loop and I positioned the buried hook so it would pop right out. NOT !!!! I almost passed out when he jerked the line. We cut off the hook with some dikes and we drove in. My wife met me at the Wahweap ramp and took me to the ER. It took the ER doctor 6 tries to get the hook out after he numbed me. Then it went flying against the wall. He made the comment that there was no way I was getting that hook out.

As mentioned before, the key is pushing down HARD on the eye of the hook before you give the line tied to the bend a yank. I can confirm that this may not be pleasant, but it is essential to insure proper trajectory of the barbed section of the hook as it comes out of the flesh.

But maybe you just have thick skin! My wife had a Rapala and a Snook attached to her hand in Belize after we had canoed and fished down a coastal river. I bonked the snook and removed the hook from the lure with split ring pliers. The treble hook was buried straight into the meat of her thumb, no possibility of pushing it through and cutting the barb off. I had never done the trick but had heard of it and it worked like a charm. The worst part (after the snook was removed), was attaching the string to the bend of the hook and pushing down on the eye of the hook. Every little movement of a hook that is stuck into your finger is agonizing, but the actual removal part was not that bad. At least In the 4 times I have done it, and the 2 times I have coached people on how to do it when I was the one hooked...