Several years ago my father got a fishing lure stuck in his finger while removing a fish and had to go to the hospital to have it removed.  Certain members of my family such as me and my brothers and my mother found this hilarious.  One of the reasons we found this hilarious was that approximately 10 years prior, my father caught himself in the head with a different hook while fly fishing, and had to get it removed at a hospital, which was made even more hilarious by the fact that at the time he was fishing with my 18 year-old brother’s 14 year-old girlfriend.

I, in particular, was so concerned about my father after his more recent bout that I bought him a giant version of the lure that got him to hang on the wall in our house as a way to remind all of us to talk about the incidents as often as possible.  The lure that was in his hand was made by a company called Rapala, and looks like your average little black and white fish except for the fact that there are a bazillion hooks that dangle from its body.  Rapalas are made in Finland, where 90% of the population makes snow tires for a living, and where everyone takes everything very serious so the lures are built in such a way that a fish can get hooked in the eye socket for merely thinking about possibly eating the lure at some point in the future. 

 In recent years I’ve done a lot of ocean fishing.  In Boston, this means I mostly fish for striped bass.  One of the reasons fishing for striped bass is so popular is that the fish are great to eat, the other reason is that when the fish are “running” a person with no eyes and no fishing pole could potentially catch his limit.

Last night, our evening of fishing started very quickly; before we’d even gotten settled, we’d boated three good-sized fish.  Approximately 30 minutes into our evening I hooked another, and while it was big, it was not so clearly a “keeper” that I decided to measure it before hitting it in the head with a winch handle.  Being a man of caution, I carefully placed my foot on fish’s stomach and draped the measuring device across its body, which was as awkward as it was inaccurate.  As I was calling for help from my friend, the fish attempted to snap itself in half, flipped free from under my foot, and whipped its head directly past my right index finger, where it lodged one of the enormous hooks dangling from the 9” Rapala I’d used to catch it.

The only thing worse than having a barbed hook 1/4'” into your flesh is having a different one of the hooks deeply rooted in the jaw of an oxygen-starved bass.  Once we eliminated the immediate threat of having the fish bury more hooks in my hand, I was left with two problems.  First, I had a 9” lure with 16 hooks dangling from my hand and there was no chance in hell I could get it out without destroying my finger and fainting from the pain.  Second, the fishing was outstanding and we were in the midst of a feeding frenzy so I was not anxious to leave.

I made the decision that I would not attempt to perform surgery on my own finger in the middle of the ocean, but rather that I would continue to operate the boat and steer my companion to fish until I either died from a staph infection, or he caught enough fish that he didn’t feel he’d been cheated.

Approximately 3 hours after impact, I drove to the hospital with my wife, who was mostly amused at my predicament, but who did express some embarrassment about my appearance, which included bright yellow Crocs, and according to her, a smell “like a mix of fish, salt, and sweat”.

As quickly as I was triaged, I was supplanted by a woman who was approximately 200 pounds overweight and stated that she had been experiencing chest pain for “5 hours”, which was even less surprising that the ER’s decision to see her before me.

When I finally met the nurse and ER doctor they were unsettlingly candid about their inexperience at such procedures.   I was given two options by the doctor: the first was to use “some kind of a needle to press down the barb or something which I really don’t know how to do” or second to “push the lure through”. 

I selected option two which involved extensive use of lidocaine and resulted in the doctor requesting bolt cutters from the ward custodian.  Eventually, after some amusing interactions and several false starts, the hook was out. 

Now that I’ve got my own fishhook-in- appendage story perhaps I’ll stop talking about my dad’s.  But… probably not, because if I do that I’ll miss out on the chances to mention my brother’s toddler girlfriend.  Think this is rude?  Lighten up, this isn’t Finland.