What's your worst fishing related accident/injury

[lucky strikes]

My 3 yr old son helped me spool up a rod yesterday with six lb test for some trout fishing at Pitt lake, we had no problem and he held the spool with a nail through the middle. Next I had to do my missus step-brothers rod and i was reeling line on, he was holding the spool and his hand started to burn from the friction......he let go of the plastic spool and corked me right in the face and cut me open. It must have hit me doing about 70km and hurt like a SOB......couldn't even be mad it was so funny that a three yr old had no problem and a 42 yr old struggles with the basics......good times.

 

[adrianna3]

I knew a friend of a friend who ran a filleting knife across his wrist at Nitnat while trying to open a pack of herring. Luckily there was a woman in camp who had some maxi-pads that they could apply pressure and stem the bleeding until they could get him to hospital.

Dave

 

[Seafever]

LuckyStrikes:- you remind me of mma fighter Ken Shamrock after he'd been in the ring with Tito Ortiz for 2 minutes.....ouch!

Me and the wife were jig-fishing off Ballenas Island back when they didn't have the RCA established then.

I had a large jig with a big thick treble on it (which I'd just sharpened to razor points).

I threw it over the side to get started.

Only problem was:- it caught my left middle finger and went in one side and out the other,close to the bone.

I wasn't about to pull that out with the barb it had on it.

Didn't have any hefty-enough pliers or wirecutters on board back then.

So I got it off the snap-ring on the jig and left it in there for about 4 hours and when we got back I went to the walk-in clinic in Parksville and he froze my finger up and got it out.

 

[profisher]

Coming back from Nitinat to Bamfield after a days fishing we hit a wave that launched one of my customers up into the corner of my roof mounted chart rack. He had a nasty gash on the top of his head that as all head wounds do, spewed blood like old faithful. We ended up at the clinic in Bamfield and a nurse was called to stitch him up. We helped him forget his pain that night by getting into a bunch of Caesars.

 

[007]

I was fly fishing, got the hook in my eyeball, had it removed and they put 3 stiches in my eye.

 

[SteelyDan]

I was tailing a hatchery steelhead on Christmas eve for my uncle on a steep rip-rap embankment when the rocks I was standing on collapsed under my feet! I went into the frigid cold river up to my neck in the current and scrambled to get out as 300lb+ boulders tumbled down on me! I was in shock from the cold and even managed to grab the steelhead and make my way back up to the top of the bank on the trail. Uncle Lance says to me, "looks like you bled that steelhead out when you grabbed it like that". I looked at the fish as blood poured from its gills when I realized it was my hand that was pouring blood! Yikes!!! I had got my hand stuck in between the rocks and took a few fingernails off and skinned down to the bone! Man that hurt! All of my finger nails grew back over time but my hand does look a little odd now...

Be careful out there guys.

 

[trophywife]

piece of rock cod spine embedded in my ankle... had to go to the hospital after a week of an infection not going away... club foot!!!

 

[Charter Tofino]

Sliced my index finger to the bone last month and lost half the range of motion. Finally getting into the docs tomorrow to see what they can do.

 

[lorneparker1]

Back east I had a little shaker northern pike on a small rapala. Brought him to the boat and grabbed him behind the neck. He shoke like a little prick and imbedded 2 of the 3 hooks on the back trebble into the webbing in my hand between my index finger and my thumb. Past the barb. I proceeded to press his head against the boat seat to stop him from shaking and cut his head clean off with the edge of the bench. Went to the clinic and got it fixed up. Didnt feel amazing at the time.

Another good one was fishing the saugeen river back east, and some dink casts a little cleo across the river and hooked the guy next to me right in the check a 1/2 inch below his right eye. the cast was so far the guy didnt see what he had done and thought he hooked bottom and was yanking it. i ran over and bit the line. The fella next to me prompty stomped across the river with the spoon still in his face and proceeded to beat the living crap out of the guy. Was quite the show.

Lorne

 

[spring fever]

This spring while Striper Sniper and I were crabbing-he was using a 5 hp briggs and Stratton with a 6-1 gear reduction and a warping head to pull the trap. It is very strong and---fast. Maybe talking and not paying attention-whatever-it grabbed his hand and started to wind it and the rope plus glove around the head. We have a safety man on the cut-off who stopped the engine. Blood-torn pieces of glove everywhere!! Many stitches/ emerg--couple of skin grafts and physio later still not 100%

 

[Striper Sniper]

SeaWolf and I were fishing Cree or Seven Mile in Barkley, I can't remember which, when SeaWolf's rod popped and I slipped on fish slime going for it. I picked up a hardball sized lump to the old bean and a memmory lapse...... SeaWolf insisted on getting me back to the Nook, even though the bite was on, enough excitement for one day.(and to get a beer if I recall....) Could have been serious.....

SS

 

[getbent]

I bet he did it on person LS ;0
I was sturgeon fishing late one night on the tide chamge in the fall using roe bags. Fishing was great and I had some frozen bags of roe already tied up and went to pump a little sturgeon feast into it with a syringe and it went right through the ball and into my thumb and pumped some feast into my thumb....

Getbent

 

[SeaWolf]

I told you not to touch my rod. It was Seven Mile and you slipped on water after meticulously washing away the slime. Something about your eyes all rolled back told me it was the right thing to do.

 

[seadna]

LuckyStrikes:- you remind me of mma fighter Ken Shamrock after he'd been in the ring with Tito Ortiz for 2 minutes.....ouch!

Me and the wife were jig-fishing off Ballenas Island back when they didn't have the RCA established then.

I had a large jig with a big thick treble on it (which I'd just sharpened to razor points).

I threw it over the side to get started.

Only problem was:- it caught my left middle finger and went in one side and out the other,close to the bone.

I wasn't about to pull that out with the barb it had on it.

Didn't have any hefty-enough pliers or wirecutters on board back then.

So I got it off the snap-ring on the jig and left it in there for about 4 hours and when we got back I went to the walk-in clinic in Parksville and he froze my finger up and got it out.

I had pretty much the same experience only in a different place - Point no Point near Seattle. Had to motor back to Seattle, talk the Ballard locks operator into letting me jump the line, motor to my slip (6 miles at 6kts), and then go to the hospital to get it removed. The ER doc first want to just yank it out but I could see tendon coming out with it. I forced him into cutting it off and pushing it out the other side. Was the most painful thing I've experienced. Finger is OK though with just two barely visible scars (entrance and exit).

 

[Fish Assassin]

Sitting on the gunnel as the captain went off an wave cracking my tail bone as I hit the floor. 11 years later it still hurts to sit in hard chairs.

Having a guy come up behind me while cleaning fish and cutting off the top of my thumb off it was put back on but the nerve damage will last a life time.

 

[albernifisher]

I was sight fishing steelhead on the stamp river just below the hatchery,water was only about 3 feet deep.I noticed one about 10 feet in front of me and decided to bottom bounce a spin n glow and see if I could hold it right in its face.The river was running a little quick so I put a decent size chunk of pencil lead,casted upstream from from it and proceded to work it down...perfect,it held 10 inches in front of its nose.The steely sat there un interested for 30 seconds or so and then moved out another 10 feet or so,went to reel in to give it another cast and it was stuck.In a hurry to get another shot at the fish I hauled back as hard as I could,the pencil lead held fast for a second and then shot out like a bullet and caught me right above the left eye.Instantly swelled shut and blood everywhere,quick trip to the hospital and 4 stiches later... got a nice scar to remind me to never do that again!!

 

[marbledmurrelet]

Taking a salmon leader out of a dead halibut, only trouble was the halibut wasn't dead. The hook buried into my thumb behind my nail as the halibut did its thing, the hook tore out the side...

 

[Degree of Freedom]

Fly fishing...er, I mean trying to go fly fishing on a remote logging road outside of Gold River...while gearing up I closed the trunk of my new car with my keys inside. Not wanting to scratch up my paint I figured it would be a good idea to hold onto a large rock while smashing in a side window...took a lot more force than I expected to break that window. When it finally gave way the momentum of the rock pulled my arm through the jagged glass and cut my forearm right through the flesh and muscle...two hour drive back to CR driving a stick shift with my right arm in a tourniquet sitting in broken glass, thinking what a f'n idiot I was...

 

[sharkbait]

a couple of recent fishing related incidents,

1) winch teeth broke with 8000 lb boat on the other end, just missed my head but not my hand....just a glancing blow but a compound fracture to my index finger

2) same as many others, barbed hook in my finger from a thrashing fish I thought was dead....it missed bone so I just cut the one end, pushed it out the other side of the finger and so I just kept fishing....although my brother was feeling a bit green after watching me cut the hook off with a pair of wire cutters and...glad it was relatively clean and new hook that was sharp....and wasn't a huge fish

3) going over a big wake from a large pleasure boat, I wasn't prepared for how large of a drop it was off the backside of his wake and hit the throttle handle and broke 3 ribs, but still caught some fish

 

[Big Green Machine]

Is anyone feeling light headed right now reading these?

My Dad, when I was 16, he was cleaning out my Grandpas tackle box that had been given to me in his will when he died. Rusty barbed treble hook (had seen water maybe 50 years ago) ended up in the top of my Dads hand, buried deep, into a vein and blood was everywhere. He came in the house and passed out from the looks of it, and I had to load him in the car and drive him to the clinic. I too, almost passed out. We are both squeamish.