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Stinger hooks

There has been twice now that I have learned the true meaning behind “stinger hooks.” The first time, my wife caught a big Spanish mackerel on a butterfly jig and it wriggled free as I was trying to get the hook out. As it fell out of my hand, the stinger hook caught the palm of my hand….yep… it stung. We had just travelled for 3 hours to get out to where we wanted to fish when this happened. We had a heck of a time trying to get the hook out and I surely wasn’t ready to give up on fishing for the day, so we tried and tried and eventually were able to get the hook out (there is a pretty good sized barb on a size 5/0 hook) We fished the remainder of the day and caught a lot of fish. It surely was an adventure.

On the second occasion I was out with my son Coty and we were about 50 miles off shore at one of the naval towers off of Georgia’s coast when he caught an Amberjack. IT was probably about a 35 pound Amberjack and he caught it on a Yo-Zu-Ri lure with two treble hooks. This time, I tried to remove the hook and the Amberjack shook his head while on the deck of the boat. When he did, he drove one of the trebles deep into my thumb. Being that this was a very large and very “green” fish, I didn’t wait for him to thrash around again. This time I yanked the hook out with a large portion of the flesh of my thumb attached to the barb as I figured I was going to lose the whole thing if I didn’t. I can tell you that it stung a little.

Lesson, Exercise a lot of caution when trying to remove a hook that has a stinger hook attached.

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