Buried Past the Barb

Many years ago, when I was a very young adult, I belonged to a local bass fishing club.  This was in the early days of bass fishing tournaments, and almost none of us in the club had the early "bass boats", which were ridiculous-looking compared to what is common today, both in looks and in performance.  We used canoes and aluminum johnboats, and we had tournaments once a month, mostly on small, local lakes.  We were having a tournament on Sunnen Lake, west of Potosi, Missouri, one day.  There were probably about a dozen boats from our group scattered across the lake.  I was fishing that day by myself; I was in my little 12-foot johnboat with an electric trolling motor and a very small outboard motor.  I was using a big deep-diving lure with two large treble hooks, casting it toward the bank, when I miscalculated and landed the lure in a bush overhanging the water.  I jiggled and jerked to no avail, so I turned my head to reach for the switch to the trolling motor to turn it on and go over to the bank, and as I did, I gave the lure one more hard tug.  It came loose, flying through the air back toward me, and I turned my head back to see where it was going, just in time to catch it in my face.  It was stuck right in the very sensitive skin where my upper lip meets my nose.  I reached up, felt the hook, and realized it was buried well past the barb.  It wasn't coming out.  I looked around, and saw that there was nobody else in our group anywhere near me, but I could see a couple of boats on the other side of the lake.  I clambered to the back of the boat to start the outboard motor to go over and get some help.  When I tugged on the starter rope, that's when I realized all the slack line from my reel to my lure had wrapped around my arm and shoulder, and the hard pull to start the motor jerked the lure attached to me VERY painfully.  But the motor started on the first pull, and I headed across the lake.

Eventually, I had three or four of my friends and competitors gathered around me on the bank, discussing what to do.  Going to the emergency room was discussed, but one friend who was the city marshal decided he could get it out.  He bore down, pushing the barb of the hook on through, the curve of the hook making it come back out of the skin.  Then he clipped off the now exposed barb and point with a set of side cutters, and removed the hook.  You can imagine how much that hurt!  If you've ever tried to do something like that, you've probably been surprised at how much force it takes to push even a very sharp hook through human skin.  If you've ever tried to use simple force to just pull the hook barb back out of the hole it went in, you'll know that unless the hook is very small, that takes even more force, and results in a LOT of pain, and probably won't work at all.

Perhaps coincidentally, just a few weeks or months afterwards, I came upon an article in one of the big three outdoor magazines about how to more easily remove hooks.  I still remember the photos accompanying the article, which used a raw chicken from the grocery store to show the technique.  I read it and it made some sense, and I kept it in the back of my mind.

Fast forward about a decade.  My wife Mary and I hadn't been married long...or perhaps this was even before we got married.  We were fishing, and Mary ended up with the treble hook from a Rattletrap lure stuck past the barb in her forearm.  Again, the emergency room was discussed, but I remembered that article from long ago.  I told her I knew an easy trick for removing the hook.  She reluctantly agreed that I should try.  As I was getting the materials ready for the big operation, she asked me, "You have done this before, haven't you?"

I knew a truthful answer would result in quitting fishing and driving the hour or so to the ER, so yes, I lied.  "Sure!  I've done it many times."

I have to tell you that I was sweating bullets.  If this didn't work our relationship would certainly suffer, as would Mary.  But I got the hook into position, pushed down on the barb, and yanked, very hard, on the loop of line.  The hook went flying into the brush, never to be seen again, and Mary was impressed; she had hardly felt it.

I and many others call this the string trick.  I have since removed hooks from myself and others many times, and it has never failed, always surprising me and whoever has suffered the buried barb with how quick and painless it is.  If you are an angler, you really, really need to know this trick.

First of all, you should be prepared.  I always carry either a set of side cutters or a small multi-tool in my pocket or my tackle when I go fishing. I also have a length of old fly fishing line, about three feet long, in my tackle.  That is basically all you'll need.  And you don't even need the fly line, any sturdy line or string will do.  I've used doubled over monofilament fishing line at times, and my shoelace at other times.

In the case of lures with treble hooks attached, the first order of business is to remove the lure from the buried hook, and that's where the side cutters come in. On most such lures these days, the hooks are attached to the lure body with split rings, and you just clip the split ring with the side cutters.  I've gotten it done even with the tiny little wire cutting section of the pliers of my little multi-tool.  That will probably be the most painful part of the operation, because you have to move the lure around, twisting the hook a bit, in order to get it off.  Once you've gotten that far, you're home free.

The diagram below shows how to do it.  You loop your length of line around whatever part of the bend of the hook is still exposed.  Then, you push HARD on the eye of the hook, pushing it directly toward the buried barb.  THIS PART IS IMPORTANT!  You MUST push HARD on the eye, and push it directly toward where you imagine the barb of the hook is.  Then, while pushing, you simply jerk the line in the direction shown, trying to jerk it parallel to the hook shank.  Jerk sharply and hard.  The hook should pop right out.  I've always thought that both the operator and the victim should be wearing eye protection when you do this, or at least close your eyes, because that hook will go flying to who knows where.

I show to cut the other barbs off the hook, and that's a good idea if you have a set of wire cutters that is strong enough to do so, but it isn't necessary.  As for the pushing firmly on the eye of the hook, I once watched a Youtube video where this guy stuck two big hooks in his own forearm to test the efficacy of removing a hook using the string trick compared to the technique of pushing the barb on through and out and clipping it off.  He pushed the barb on through first, and just about collapsed from the pain and difficulty of doing so.  Then he had a helper to push on the eye of the hook while he used the string trick.  BUT...he did not tell the helper to push firmly, he just told him to hold the eye of the hook down.  So when he jerked on the string, the eye of the hook came out from under the helper's fingertip, and instead of the hook popping out, it just twisted, and ended up pushing the barb on through just like the first time.  And he almost collapsed from the pain!  The main reason to push HARD on the eye of the hook is to stretch the skin and open a channel for the barb to travel through when you jerk, but it also serves to keep THAT from happening.

One note...the string trick won't work on those "outbarb" hooks with the barb on the outside of the bend.  I don't care whether those things hook fish better or not, I will NOT use them, because I don't want to have to deal with trying to get one those types of hooks out of myself or my buddy.

I've had to remove hooks from my own big toe, calf, thigh, belly, forearm, and several fingers.  Removing them from your own arm or hand is problematical, since you need a hand to push on the eye of the hook and another hand to tug on the string.  I have solved that problem by finding a log or rock that has a protuberance that I can place the eye of the hook against and push down on it, while tugging the string with the other hand.  No matter how you do it, you must apply that force pushing the eye toward the buried barb.  

It is always surprising to me when people tell tales of going to the emergency room to get hooks removed, and the doctors numbing the area and either cutting the hook out or pushing the barb on through.  I have yet to hear a story where the doctor used the string trick.  In fact, one of my fly fishing buddy's brother is a doctor, and when we were discussing the string trick one day on the river, he said he didn't believe it worked and wouldn't try it on a patient, even after I told him some of my hook removal stories.  One of my best stories was when I was at a gathering of people on a small lake, and one of the other guys was fishing the lake and got the hook from a Zara Spook in his forearm.  He came back to the campground saying he had to go to the emergency room to get it removed.  

"Nah," I said, "I can get it out.  And it won't hurt, either."

Now he didn't know me all that well, and he was dubious, but finally he agreed.  So he sat down at a picnic table while I got my stuff out.  I quickly clipped off the hook, but as I was doing so, he was staring at that big hook in his arm and I could tell he was getting woozy.  I told him to look away.  Then his head came down on the table; I think he had passed out.  By that time I had the line looped around the bend, so I simply gave it a jerk and out the hook came.  A second or so later he raised his head, and said, "No, I'm sorry, I gotta go to the ER."  

I just told him, "Take a look at your arm."

The string trick won't work in some situations.  You don't want to try it if the hook is in or near an eye, or stuck into cartilage or a joint.  You have to evaluate it to see if it is possible to push in the required direction.  But I have yet to encounter such a situation.  The only time I was unable to use the string trick was when I was floating and fishing by myself and got a hook stuck in the back of my upper arm.  I couldn't reach it well enough to get it off the lure, let alone figure out how to maneuver to be able to push the eye of the hook against something.  Fortunately, I was only a half mile from where my truck was.  It was still a two-hour drive home with the lure stuck in my arm, but I made it, and my wife quickly popped the hook out.