Friday the 13th - Hooked a Whole Bunch of Things

[Latimeria]

My plan was to just fish the morning and get home to finish the workday remotely.  I heard of some squid and WSB locally, so I needed to give it a shot before the weekend crowds found out.



Making squid was a bust.  I couldn't even meter any.  The stuff I was metering turned out to be huge clouds of lizards!



There was everything but mackerel around.  I even caught a dozen calico on the sabiki!



dozens of baby dabs...



An no shortage of Lizards.



I made a few macks and tried drifting a few hours for halibut, WSB, or yellows.  It was slow and boring, but I did find some humor in the long wait.



I then ran north and found the biomass of macks.  They were too big to sabiki since 3 on one line felt like I was trying to reel in a yellow and I didn't want a sabiki in my hand...  How ironic that thought would eventually be.  I switched to a jig to sportsman's catch them and it was a lot more fun on the light spinner.



I made over 50 and ran back to the grounds looking for a big butt.



That didn't work and I needed to start heading back.  I came across some different clouds of marks in an unassuming spot.  100% no rocks in this area but probably hard bottom.  I dropped the jig down 20 times and caught one on every drop 19 Browns and 1 sculpin.





On last drop and another brown.  As I'm reaching to grab it, it shakes off the hook and the jig goes flying like a bullet into my hand.  Damn it.  I tried but it was as stuck as any hook I've ever had in me and it was deep!



The hardest part was trying to grab things and get the boat ready to drive in with the hook right in the palm of my had.  I didn't want it to hook into anything and tear out.
I get to the ramp and realize how hard it is to empty the boat and get the boat on the trailer with a hook in my hand... but I managed.



I couldn't get the hook point through to save my life.  How the hell was my skin so tough with such a sharp hook?  I finally gave up since I felt it on my bone and went to urgent care after I got the boat unhooked and gear out of the boat.  The doctor there seemed a little too excited to work on my hand since I don't think he's seen many hooks in hand from what I was gathering from his excitment.

He couldn't believe how tough it was to poke the hook through.  I told him they were tuna assist hooks, so they weren't you normal little bait hooks.

He used a set of pliers to grab the hook end and used a set of pliers to push my skin down to puncture the skin and get the barb through.  I couldn't believe how hard it was and it definitely hurt.  Topical pain wipes were not very efficient or effective.



Then he was trying to cut the hook with some sort of medical nips.  I was like "There's no way your cutting the barb or hook off with that thing.... This isn't a trout hook.".  I then said I had a big pair of pliers/cutters in my truck, so he agreed to use them.  They barely worked, but he finally cut through the hook and we got it removed.  My hand hurts about as much as you would expect but nowhere near as bad a tiger bite, so that's good.

I get home to wash the boat and bag the bait.  Unfortunately, it had to be done when all I wanted to do was rest.  lol

I did get a bunch of 2-gallon ziplocs loaded with some good bait though!



Well, afterwards I realized it was Friday the 13th and will remember this for the next one... like not going fishing.  I'm also going to be a little hook shy since I felt like I came out relatively unscathed on this and it could have been worse.

Anyway, thanks for reading!