Adam,

I think a "man point" is warranted for you since you sucked it up and returned post-surgery to complete your trip! Plus, you got me thinking about finger injuries so here goes..........

I was night fishing for walleye about 15 years ago while wading with another teacher buddy of mine.....decided to hand land a nice walleye and long story short, he flopped and pulled to 2 trebles into 2 side by side fingers. If I pulled on 1 set of hooks, it only buried the other set deeper and vice versa so I was stuck (literally). Buddy drove me to hospital with a firetiger rapala hanging off my fingers and blood dripping down the sides of it. Doctor numbed them and removed them. The shot was much worse than the hooks were!

5 years after that, I was attempting to hand land a mid-40's musky and she zigged when I zagged then presto, trebles into middle finger with fish hanging from hand flopping in boat floor. With each flop, the treble tore more meat along my finger until the rip was the full length of my finger and I could actually feel/hear my median nerve snap. Long story short, 37 stitches from hand specialist and severed nerve that has actually grown back with about 75 percent feeling along the lateral side of finger. That one hurt more than any of the others did including biceps tendon.

Last one and also the dumbest one of all........

Trolling on Tionesta 7 or so years ago and got pulled into a snag. I decided to put on leather glove and wrap the 100# braid around my hand while goosing the trolling motor hoping to break the branch. Just as the line was tightening, a huge wind picked up and the braid tightened so quickly that I could not unwrap it fast enough before I began to be pulled overboard. As I screamed like a little girl thinking that my fingers were being severed at the second knuckle (which they were), the line finally broke. I took the glove off and the line had dug into my skin and completely cut a circle into my balled-up fingers. Needless to say, Charlie and the Horseshoe man were quite entertained.

The morale to the story is........always wrap the braid around the nearest cleat about 10 times before trying to pull lure free.