[Blaze]

Hooked - a true story
“Anything that can go wrong, will” –Murphy

This was never as true than on a day when I was fishing with a couple of friends. Here’s a short synopsis of what went wrong on a very windy day. More importantly as you read this, I’d like you to imagine the situation and how it could have been avoided, and imagine how it could have been worse, had the individual been by himself with no one around to help.

I’ll give a lead-in, so his story, as I’ll be quoting it from a post he made on the Message board, will make more sense.

We all decided to head in as the wind that day was a bit too much for us. Three of us hit the shore, only to find one was still out in the water (deep water), and we noticed he was not in his kayak! Here is his story. I’ll call it...

Hooked


I learned several lessons yesterday, the hard way. Richard suggested that I post a message for all our fellow kayakers to read and hopefully learn a lesson the easy way.
The first lesson is to have a healthy respect for a hung anchor in a kayak. My anchor was hung solid on the bottom (in deep water) so I decided to paddle over the top and past the anchor to give it a tug from the upwind side and hopefully free it up. Paddling upwind I had enough momentum that when the anchor rope tightened, combined with the wave action, it capsized me instantaneously with no warning whatsoever. This was not so bad in it self, the following turn of events is what really put me in a fix. As I turned the kayak back over I had a plastic box with several lures in it that had come open during the capsize, setting the top water lures adrift and sending the others to the bottom. While attempting to retrieve the topwater lures I managed to embed a hook from a super spook past the barb in my right pointer finger. At this point I realized that the situation was going south rapidly so I pulled the tab to inflate my SOSpenders. Then I managed to get the other hook on the super-spook caught in my windbreaker up around my left shoulder. By this time I'm beginning to feel like Tim Conway in the skit as the dentist when he shot himself in several places with Novocain until he was almost completely disabled. But fortunately things started looking up. There were 3 guys in a powerboat not far away that saw I was having a bit of trouble and came over and ask if they could help. When you have your right hand pinned to left shoulder you are ready for someone to offer a helping hand. I don't know if I told those guys thank you enough. My first request was for some wire cutters but they had none to offer. They helped me into their boat and towed my kayak to the beach where James and Richard were there to help me regain use of my right hand (by the way the anchor was still hung and the guys in the power boat were barely able to pull it up). Richard was able to push the hook the rest of the way through and cut the barb off and take the hook out. Being near the finger tip where all those nerve endings are this was not without a degree of pain. I am however grateful for all the help. It could have been worse. The lessons I learned and would pass on to anyone interested are:

1. Exercise extreme caution with a hung anchor (especially in deep water).
2. Make sure the method you use for storing lures is secure at all times.
3. Have on hand a reliable means of cutting a hook loose.
4. Whenever you are fishing alone (which thankfully I wasn't today). Be extra cautious because you may have to deal with some bizarre unforeseen situations by yourself, if you are the least bit careless. Fish with a partner whenever you can.

Here are a couple of others I should relay to you:

Wear your PFD! Not having it on in this case would have been bad.

Have a signaling device such as a loud whistle, hanging around your neck, as it won’t do you a bit of good anywhere else.