Fishing hand injuries fall into three groups:
- HOOKS in fingers,
- overuse from casting and fighting fish, and
- wounds from fish spines, teeth and fillet knives
Most hooks in the fleshy part of a finger can be removed by a clinician in minutes. A hook near a joint, tendon or nail, deep, or barbed in a hard-to-reach spot needs medical care.
The injury that gets underestimated is the fish-spine prick that becomes infected days or weeks later.
Hooks: when to leave it alone
Cut the line, leave the hook in, and get to a clinic or emergency department if:
- The hook is near or in a JOINT, over a knuckle crease, or near the nail
- It went in deep, or you can’t see where the point is
- You have numbness, or the finger won’t fully bend or straighten
- It’s a treble hook with more than one point in, or still attached to a moving lure or fish
- You don’t know how to remove it safely
Clinicians use a few quick techniques depending on hook depth and barb. Pulling a barbed hook straight back out tears tissue.
Check your tetanus is up to date after any hook injury.
Crush the barbs flat before you fish. A barbless hook comes out almost the way it went in.
Fish spines, teeth and knives
- Venomous spines on fish like catfish, weever, lionfish and stingrays cause severe pain out of proportion to the wound. Immersing the hand in hot water, as hot as you can tolerate without scalding, is the usual first aid while you get medical help. Spine fragments can stay in the wound
- Infections from fish handling include erysipeloid, Mycobacterium marinum and Vibrio. They behave differently from ordinary cuts and need the right antibiotic. See sushi chefs for how each one looks
- A finger held bent and painful to straighten after any puncture: flexor tendon sheath infection. Same-day emergency
- Teeth from pike and other toothy species: clean well and watch for spreading redness
- Fillet knife cuts followed by a finger that won’t bend or a numb strip: tendon or nerve injury. See which cuts need more than stitches
- Braided line under tension slices skin like a wire when it runs across a finger
Overuse from casting and fighting fish
- Outer elbow pain from long casting days: tennis elbow. Fly casters who break the wrist far back on each cast load the forearm tendons most
- Inner elbow and forearm pain from fighting big fish and heavy cranking: golfer’s elbow
- Thumb-side wrist pain from repeated reeling and wrist flicks: De Quervain’s
- Aching at the base of the thumb from thumbing a baitcaster spool and tying knots: thumb base overload, or CMC arthritis
- Fingers going white and numb in cold water: Raynaud’s
The changes that make the most difference
- Barbless hooks, or barbs crushed flat with pliers
- Unhook with pliers or a disgorger, never with your fingers near a thrashing fish
- Grip spiny fish with a glove or lip grip, and learn which local species carry venom
- Cut-resistant glove on the hand holding the fish when filleting
- Break braid with a tool or wrap it around a cloth, never around bare fingers
- Fly casting: stop the rod with the forearm instead of letting the wrist fold back
- Use a fighting belt or rod butt pad for big fish, and pump and wind instead of cranking against the full load
- Pace trip days. Eight hours of casting on day one, after months off, is a common tennis elbow trigger
Get it assessed if
- A hook near a joint, tendon or nail, or deeply embedded
- Severe pain after a spine puncture, or a fragment still in the wound
- Spreading redness or swelling within a day of any puncture or cut
- A lump or sore that appears weeks after a small wound and won’t heal
- A finger that won’t fully bend, or a numb strip after a cut
- Elbow pain that stays after six weeks of paced fishing and tendon loading
For the splints involved, see the tennis elbow counterforce strap.
Crush the barb, glove the spiny fish, and tell the doctor it came from fish.
Every article on this site is written using the Closing Window Method: name the window your condition runs on, find where you are in it, and act while it’s still open.