Hey all -- stumbled on your site, nice information. I enjoy spending a morning a week on the lake with my 5.5 yr old son. 95% shoreline, because he gets bored and isn't always so safe in boats at his age. I'm mainly a bass guy, he alternates between bass and bluegill. We've got adequate populations of LM and smallies on the lakes where I usually fish, along with some stripers.
So the promised story! On Saturday we went to one of our favorite little lakes, and my wife came along.
First cast I caught a very pretty little smallie on a simple shallow crank. Nothing to write home about, but a fine fish. 5 casts later, my little lure was crushed. Pulled up my best largemouth of the season, beautiful.
My wife goes to get the camera. I started to bring the fish up, but didn't have control of it yet. The boy throws his hand in to try to "help" (he knows better, but was excited).
The fish bucked, and he caught a treble hook in his forearm. He screams and starts running. That pulls the other treble out of the fish's mouth, and I caught two of the hooks in my first and second fingers, up in the meat of the fingertips. The fish bounces into the water. The boy runs up the bank -- but we're hooked together, so he's pulling me up the bank too, and every step is driving the hooks.
I get him stopped, and we're firmly barbed on the same lure. No wire cutters in my case (duh! fixed that on Sunday), we have to get the hospital. But any movement from either of us, the other yelps. I've attached a picture from the car ride, crazy.
With him on my lap in the car, my wife drove us in. The hospital staff had never seen any two people barbed together on the same lure! hahaha. Impossible odds. They freed us up, and we were back on the water by Monday morning.
Sorry, just had to share my ridiculously bad luck. We were back at it Monday morning, but were a little more cautious!
