7-19-10

wanted to go out on my creek tonight....After watching the weather report, severe thunderstorms, high winds, rain...blah blah....It never actually did storm by the way, a little sprinkle then sun...I decided it would be better to not be in a kayak floating with a 9 ft lightning rod whipping back and forth over my head...I went to the resevoirs....Hit some nice gills, a few baby smallies....and myself...Yup that's right....Three years fly fishing and I have not had any severe hooking incidents...Until today...A little dragon fly nymph got caught up around some weeds...I went to grab for it, simultaneously pulling at the fly and the leader to pull it through the leaves. Well, the fly slipped and drove straight through the tip of my pointer finger. Now I usually pinch all of my barbs down...This happened to be the one fly that I missed with the pliers....All the way through, barb shining in the sun.....So....Hook in my finger, fly rod in other hand, still tangled in the bush....I break the branch off, walk up from the bank, untangle the line from the weeds....Now at this point why I didn't just clip off the leader, I don't know....But in my scattered thought process I couldn't figure out how to get my book bag off my back while having a fly stuck in my finger...So one arm goes through the straps, and dangles from the other....I grab my pliers only to find that the gap is not large enough to get the pliers in to cut it....I push the fly with all I have and compress my finger tip and somehow manage to get the barb clipped....Out comes the fly and I begin bleeding bubbles of blood out both holes....I packed it in for the night.....