Earlier this year, after 30 years on charter I had MY FIRST EVER fish hook accident.
For those not on social media, here is a quick outline of the events.
I was filming some new content for the land based component of our course Barra Basics with my son.
Nek Minut the big local croc surfaced near me and I quickly retreated from the water’s edge.
Still watching the croc I sensed the lure (Old Dog Lures Guttermaster) had caught on a mangrove root.
Still watching the croc and not even imagining a fish hook accident, I gave it a little flick and bang. Fishing hook lodged straight in the face.
Lucky I was wearing my trusty Tonic sunnies.
Of course Karen, taking every opportunity to pay me out, video’d this little clip as we were on the way to the hospital.
Moral of the story, crocodile + lure = hospital.
To celebrate this “achievement”, we decided to hold a little comp with our social media followers.
Offering a 6 pack of Old Dog Guttermasters as a prize, here are the best Fish Hook Accident stories.
Plus some really good safety messages (i.e. do not do this) thrown in.
First up lets showcase the winner Matt Wallace.
Imagine being waist deep in flowing water, catching a metre plus barramundi and getting hooked to the still swimming fish. OUCH.
Aaron Frost is behind the camera videoing the threesome; barra, hook, Matt attachment. It has to be seen to be believed!
Moral of the story. Never give your mate a camera when he should be holding pliers.
Next up Elliot Bradshaw. This knot tying attempt did not end well.
Although nicely hooked in the corner of the mouth.
Tightening knot tag with mouth = hospital AND funny FB pics.
Avoid fish hook accidents by watching where you jump!
Safety message: Never fish without pliers in REACH
Bruce writes;
Many years ago a mate of mine worked as a leccie at Jabiluka (Ranger uranium mine).
One arvo he decided to go for a fish at a local billabong ‘on his own’. He hooked a good Barra in the first few minutes & backed away from the water to unhook & release it.
Then realized he’d forgotten his pliers so he put his foot (in rubber thong) on the fish which flipped & drove a set of trebles into his foot good & proper
.
So he quickly grabbed to stop it doing more damage only to have it flip again and drive the other trebles into his hand!
Bent over like a half opened pocket knife he thought, ‘what I do now” 
?
He managed to get the fish unhooked, but couldn’t get either of the hooks to budge.
Just as he was about to go for broke and try tearing his hand and foot apart 
, a young lad came over the bank, 
.
My mate got the lad to go to his ute and get the pliers. Anyway the lad came back with side cutters, close enough for now my mate thought.
He then asked Ole mate to cut the trebles away from the lure. But he actually cut the first treble off level with the skin on his hand.
This freed up my mate to cut the other one off the lure and snipped off the other two hook points.
He ended up having to drive to Darwin for surgery to dig out the point in his hand & remove the one in his foot.
Turned out both hooks went through tendons so he’d have been in all sorts of strife trying to rip them out.
He never went fishing without pliers/hookouts from that day to this. 
Fish hook accident with Lure vs Turtle = hospital.
For Dave Thomson, a fish hook in the hand makes you feel like… poetry.
While out and about,
We went for a short troll,
Lucky for us wham bam trout,
Came up from a honey hole,
Hand in the net six and out,
Pain run to the centre of my soul,
Wasn’t fun when the trout flapped about,
Just lucky I got control,
Cause the wife was about to pass out,
Got him home and cooked him whole.
Fish hook accidents on during a hot bite – the agony and the ecstasy.
A bottle of rum is the best pain killer!
Not me Hooked but a chap …first name Don..last name unknown……
The story goes……… Jigging King-fish with a 400 g jig and a 3 X strong treble hook at Crater Head at the 3 Kings Island in NZ…
Was one of the first recreational charters to the islands on the Harold Hardy circa 1988.
The hook pierced a sliver thru the skin between the left to right nostril, went up the right nostril the very firmly lodged past the barb in the cartilage of the septum.
He persevered for 11 hours with 1 bottle of rum and some mary-jane but alas the skipper had to motor the 40 nm back to Cape Reinga overnight.
Don hitch hiked 110 km down to Kaitaia hospital and had the hook removed under general anesthetic, then hitched back to Wellington….
Costa Georgiou.
Sitting on fish hooks can threaten the family jewels… as Tedla Morgan found out…
Back when I was living in West Africa I got really into lure fishing. I purchased a few ultralight Rebel lures on holiday in the USA, and they came with piddly size 12 and 14 bronze trebles. Super fine wire, piddly things. No good for the beastly things I intended to feed these lures to.
So, out come the split ring pliers, new Owner ST36’s, and away we go. All hooks changed. Teeny Crawdads, J 49’s and F 50’s all sporting brand new shoes.
Cleaning, counting hooks…. should be 14 hooks here…. why the backside do I only have 11?
Musta dropped a couple (funny, didn’t hear a thing… tiled floor). Go to get up, and OUCH! Fish hook accident.
Sit back down, very gently.
Pinned to the chair upholstery, through shorts, jocks and the skin of the family jewels!
Found those 3 missing trebles…!!Very gently poked and prodded and freed myself with minimal damage/blood loss.
Suffering in Silence – pinned to the backpack by a fish hook accident.
My old mate Freddo loved leapfrogging you to fish the next spot first.
This day we were fishing the upper reaches of a freshwater stream at the Daintree chockers full of J.P’s and angry mud cod.
We’d only been fishing a short time when the scoreboard was tilting heavily in my favour. Freddo persisted though, never losing faith in the giant stick bait thing he was using.
Freddo had never owned a tackle box and would carry an assortment of lures around in whatever came to hand, today it was a little backpack.
Pool after pool I racked up quite a score. Freddo frustrated with a doughnut.
We climbed up and down pools, over rocks and logs and bashed our way through heavy rainforest. Freddo never took off his backpack and never changed lures.
I dropped him home that afternoon and he never said a word.
I didn’t twig even when he wore his backpack in the car!
His wife rang me that night to ask me why I didn’t help him get the lure out of his back!
One of his loose lures had sent a treble through the material of his backpack not long after we’d gotten out of the car in the morning.
Despite the fish hook accident, he’d worn it all day long and never said a word….
John
We hope you enjoyed our fish hook accident stories and are spared the joy of it happening to you.
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