As you know part of my life is spent working as the Executive Director of the Maine Professional Guides Association and one of my duties is being the associations lobbyist at the Maine Legislature. It is not all bad and I have come to admire those who give their time to represent us. Not that I agree with them all of the time or them me for that matter. In Maine we have a legislature that convenes for two years the first year is the “long session” that runs until June and the second year is the “short session” that runs until April or so. The second session is really only for emergency legislation (read things that have to be fixed now) and anything that was not finished in the first session. Some years there are lots of emergencies but not this year, so the schedule has been sort of leisurely and provides more than a little time to visit with those in the room.
After a short hearing and worksession this week there was some hangout time. Telling stories is of course what guides do and at some point, George Smith the former Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance and a writer in his own right told me that I should write a book. After giving it some thought I have decided that I am way too lazy to write a book but rather I would spend some time this spring telling many of the stories that I love to tell about my life as a guide and some of the things that have happened to me over the last 31 years.
Fair warning some of these are embarrassing to clients (who will of course remain nameless) and if you read all of it; a day on the water or in the woods with me may well contain repeats. So here goes the first in a series.
This one from 13 years ago and was posted to this blog then.
I suffered a treble hook through my finger this week, it was my own fault I was fishing with friends and doing a little experimenting with a lure I had been given by a client last summer and never tried. I usually remove all but one treble hook from any lure that I use to reduce my chance of getting hooked. But I was not expecting much so took the lure out of the box and tied it on. It was very successful, and I caught several fish, interesting that they were bigger than the ones we were catching on my regular bucktail jigs.
Of course, one of these bigger fish came to the side of the boat and was quite lively so that when I reached to grab him the second hook went through the back of my index finger on my left hand. Not much fun at all for either of us. I got the young fellow fishing with me to unhook the fish and we got him overboard but in all of the commotion the hook had come around and was now all the way through the back of my finger and out again. This should have been a good thing but my pliers were shaped so that it was not possible to reach in and cut the barb. We were able to take the lure off of the hook using the split ring and I drove back in to the harbor with the hook still in.
I asked around at the harbor, but no one had the wire cutters that I needed. We loaded the boat and headed home. I called my family doctor and asked for a few minutes of his time. Luckily, they could fit me in. Dropped the boat and fisherman at the house and Argy drove me to Waldoboro with my wire cutters in my pocket. Dr. Waterman said that I certainly do keep his job interesting; he removed several shotgun pellets from me ten years ago or so. The worst part of the entire ordeal was the Novocain injection. After that the barb was cut off and the hook removed like I had planned to do an hour before. Everything is fine now and the finger is not even sore.
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