Nothing ruins a relaxing of day of fishing like catching yourself on your own fish hook. Here are two methods you can use to carefully remove the hook without causing serious damage.
Illustration by Ted Slampyak.
The key to removing a fish hook, as this guide from The Art of Manliness explains, is minding the barb at the end of the hook. To remove it from your skin, you need to tie some line to the curved shank part of the hook, then apply pressure to the eye part of the hook to reduce the damage the barb will do on its way out. Keep the line taut while you push down on the eye, then quickly jerk on the line to pull the hook out. It will probably hurt still, but it’s the most efficient way to do it. If the hook is really far in there, the “advance and cut” technique has you push the hook the rest of the way through your skin. Once it’s through, you can clip off the barb and pull the hook easily through your skin.
How to Remove a Fish Hook from Your Finger: An Illustrated Guide [The Art of Manliness]
Comments
2 responses to “Remove A Fish Hook From Your Finger In Three Simple Steps”
Reminds me of sitting in emergency at Charlie Gairdner for 4 hours with two out of three points of a treble hook snapped off in the back of my upper arm. A constant stream of drunks and crazies came in before they finally got around to me and then I got a tetanus booster in the other arm as a bonus.
I did try the pliers at home before I went to hospital but I chickened out.
Always keep a cheap multitool with a set of pincers in your tackle box, i’ve had to cut a fishing hook out of a mates finger before.
Also… make sure you keep them sharp.