How to Hook a Fingernail

This is not really a fishing story that involves a fish…that is not the best way to begin a ‘fishing story’ heh?

Sunday, 26 April 2009 is a memorable one for both me and our dog, Sam.

I usually take the lures off my rods when I store them (always a good practice I have learned) but on the last trip one of my guards placed the rods back under the house without taking them off. As I was carrying two of them out to the boat my dog jumped around me and managed to get a lure hook through the side of his nose!

I don’t recommend trying to stop a dog trying to get away with a hook in his nose. But that wasn’t the worst.

After about ten minutes of trying to cut through the extra strong hooks I had put on the lure he struggled again and managed to get the other hooks in his paw. Now that was some ‘doggy screaming’. We had five guys trying to hold him down and as no one wanted to get near his mouth - as he was biting anything he could - that end of him fell to me.

In the immediate struggle after those other hooks went in, he was pushing his foot away from his nose and then getting pain in both areas, I suddenly saw heaps of blood and a ‘little sting’ in my right index fingernail. I thought Sam had bit me again.

Sam eventually just collapsed and let us deal with the hooks. A neighbour had come over with some sharper cutting pliers and cut the hooks off one by one and pulled them through the skin. My hands were just shaking with adrenaline and fatigue.

After this, I had blood all down my arm and over my hands and I went upstairs to wash my hands. I was washing my finger, looking for the bite mark and finally realised that the whole fingernail was missing!

I sat down rather suddenly (no, I didn’t faint!) and called out to Jenaya to get Mummy. She came in saw me sitting down and went down to Marilyn (who was getting water for Sam!) and said “Daddy wants you”.

Two minutes later! No one had arrived to deal with the ‘ongoing emergency’! When Marilyn arrived from me shouting she calmly told me that she saw the nail fly off and thought I had seen it too and she was a ‘little surprised’ at my calmness in continuing to deal with Sam… if only I had known!

Anyway, needless to say we didn’t go fishing.

The day after, at the office with Steven de Klerk laughing at me.

Both Sam and I were on antibiotics for a week or so. Any little scratch up here can get infected very quickly and as Sam had an open wound on his paw we had to stop it getting infected until it healed over.

We are both OK now, although Sam is terrified of fishing rods now. He hides under the table when he sees me carrying them.

The funny thing is… when I was a kid I had read heaps of WWII stories and always wondered what it would feel like to have your fingernail ripped off or bamboo pushed under the nail. I now know the pain of the aftermath but not a build up of expectation… maybe next time! Just another thing to cross off the list of things to experience.

By the way, I have just recovered from losing 5 toenails on my ‘Black Cat Adventure’ last October and now it is a fingernail. (see Brett’s Blog listed under friends)

The next fishing story will include pictures of fish! Hopefully.