Your worst flyfishing injury

[Rob]

What was your worst injury while fly fishing?
I fell and landed on my shin and had a heck of a time getting back to my truck.
Nothing broken but I had a blood clot and every time my heart beat it got bigger and hurt like CRAZY. This photo is what it looked like before I hiked out. It was as big as a hard ball by the time I got back to my truck but I was not in the mood for another photo. :(

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/rgkempton/California%20Flyfishing/ouch.jpg

[Hairstacker]

Ouch!!

I'd say mine was about 2 years ago when I slipped getting out of my inflatable kayak and jabbed my foot against some rocks underwater and broke it. Thought it was just badly bruised and limped around for a couple of weeks but I noticed a couple of toes to this day never straightened out. :?

[Charlie Gonzales]

A client stuck a 2/0 clouser in my side while fishing for stripers. luckily I had crimped his barb!

[Tony Buzolich]

Last August in Isla Holbox I fell between the cracks of some giant sandbag type things they use to make up jettys at a river mouth we were fishing. Foot and lower leg went in the crack while the rest of my body kept going forward. Everything is wedged in and I'm stuck. Took three of our guys to get me out and now my whole leg looks like that lump below the knee in the picture. :(
Got me back to our panga and the only thing we had left to wrap it with was a few cans of cold soda.
Holding the leg straight with the cans wrapped around it we bounced our way back for two hours back to Faro Blanco on Isla Holbox.
There is no hospital on Isla Holbox and it would have been three plus hours more to get back to Cancun.
The guys got me lots of ice to keep the swelling down, lots of ibupropin for the pain, and mucho cervases to help get my mind off my dilemma.
Broken leg or not I manage two more days of fishing till our plane ride home.
First stop after the plane deboarded in Sacramento was Kaiser emergency where I spent the next whole day fixing a crushed tibia.
Glad I wasn't fishing alone or I'd still be stuck there.
TONY

[MSP]

While working on a charter boat out of San Diego back in the early 70's we were catching 3 -5 pound yellowtail at the Coronado Islands. This guy is using a 3 oz bone jig on a 10' buggywhip spinning rod and yelling for the gaff. I am bending over the rail yelling at him to put the fishes head back in the water so I could gaff it. The guy keeps trying to pull it out of the water and the hook pulls and the jig comes flying up and hit me just under the brow of my right eye. I wake up lying on the deck with blood gushing into my eye which I couldn't see out of. Luckily the hook didn't get me. They called the Coast Guard and a Helicopter comes out and lowers a basket to the deck of the boat and hoists me up. With patches over both eyes I almost yacked in the copter but luckily for them I made it to land. No harm to the eye, just eight stiches under the brow and I was watching myself on the NEWS that night. Not really a bad injury but pretty exciting.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I hyper extended my knee backwards on the Pit River about 20 years ago with Galen Geller(Oregon Salmon).

It bothered me for a few years.

Dat Pit Riva is a mean thing.

[David Lee]

What was your worst injury while fly fishing?

This is a tough one .... Like , the VERY WORST ?!?

There have been so many .....

Hooks that penetrated past the barb in my tender flesh , yellowjackets that have tried to make my gonads look like Mangos , dropping twenty feet out of a tree whilst spotting fish on the Trinity , sunburns that made me look like the Lobster buffet @ Boomtown , dehydration , exposure , septic cuts , sawgrass , tendonitus , the trots from holding my running line in my mouth , having Sturmer/CW/Ken Hanley/bait guys out-fish me , hypothermia , beri-beri , trench-foot , leadcore wrapnslap , line burns ....


The VERY WORST was .... a few years back - 1st Stripe of the season .... 10 wt. rod , 15 lb. tippet - beat on that $#%^@# for around 9 minutes , then ... lost it to a opened hook without ever seein' it :shock:

THAT HURT :mad: :crybaby: ](*,) :tear:

David :nod:

[Darian]

Hmmmmm,.... Once, when I was fishing King Harbor in the early '60's and supposed to be an excellent athlete, I was rock-hopping along the slippery breakwater when I came to space that required me to make an easy jump.

My first foot slid on the rocks upon touching down. The other went up in the air along leaving me airborne over the sapce with my rod underneath. The resulting cracking wasn't from my bones (thank god). Just had a damaged ego from my friends laughing and being unable to fish the rest of the day.... :roll: :roll: :lol: :lol:

[Brett]

See my post above "Recent Adventure"

[andanb]

I can top that Quint...Why I remember the time this big white shark... :lol:

[cehm]

Two seasons ago I managed to get my feet stuck together and tripped forward shoving my hand through a boulder. Fracture in the hand and knuckle, and my Sage rod. AND passed out with my face an inch from the water. Always fish the Pit with a buddy! The ER Doc in Fall River (and local track coach) was bummed it wasn't an imbedded hook. They had a collection jar with bets for the first hook of the year. Spent the next day looped on pain meds watching a buddy shake off 10 inchers on Fall River as we went though 4 distinct hatches in the space of 2 hours. I would be remiss if I didn't share witnessing him feed out line "the Fall River Shake" down to his backing and still stuck the hook set when the fish took 100' out.

[Hairstacker]

Man, reading all these made me contemplate that I've fallen in, on, or off of virtually every river or creek I've ever spent time on. :? :lol:

[Wednesday Caster]

Why do I read these things? I can feel the pain in each body
part you all are describing as I read.

Lesson: Learn from others that go before you.
Thanks for your painful lessons and my painless knowledge
gained.

[Darian]

You'd think that we'd all learn from these things but, like David, there've been so many (serious and humorous) that I've forgotten most of 'em. I guess the real lesson here is that he or she who places his or her self in harms way is likely to get hurt (...or at least laughed at).

I kinda think life would've been boring without all of these "events". :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[SJB]

4 years ago on the south fork of the Yuba. Jumped from one granite boulder to another. Almost. Didn't break my rod. Did break both legs and one wrist. Very long day. Very long recovery. Full recovery due primarily to friend and fellow fisherman Dr. Ron Hyashi. I now avoid leaping between any rocks over 6 inches apart. I also suffer from involuntary chills, shudders, cold sweat and urination at the mention of the Yuba.

[CW]

5 or so years ago, while fishing the McCloud with Putnam, we were on a one of the beautiful runs near the bottom of the conservancy - bit of rough water into a long deep run with flat, meandering water, elephant ears hanging over the water, it just reeked of large brown trout. Jeff fished through it first, with small caddis on top, and when he was about 25 yards downstream, I stood up on a big boulder thinking my shit didn't stink because I just knew that a 20+ incher would smash the cone head muddler variation on the end of my line. At that very instant, the boulder jumped up at me (Korean for "I ate it hard"), and my legs gave out so I was fully horizontal to the ground. I fell to the ground in the superman/horizontal position and barely put my rod hand down so that the lip of the spool broke my fall. Needless to say, Jeff heard the loud crack and came running, thinking broken wrist or ankle. It was straight out of the show Jackass. I looked up with a big smile, more scared then hurt. It was a serious garage sale, if anyone came walking through that area the next day or so - hope they had good fishing with all those good small bugs that I willingly donated.

Oh and for all you tiers - I know you have experienced this one - smaller hooks like some size 18 and 20 900BLs start growing legs and wandering, then get stuck in a favorite shirt or pair of boxers. We get dressed fast and pull our boxers up fast, and feel a sharp prick and before you know it, you have a small hook stuck in one of your asscheeks up to the bend, or heaven forbid, you get a hook pricking you anywhere near your prized goods. Motivation to pinch down those barbs.