Hi all Hope you all had a great festive season

M

Malboer

New member
Hi all

Hope you all had a great festive season and have a prosperous 2015.

So I have not posted for a while but have followed the forum. I have a short story of my recent trip and would like to hear the general take on what have happened to me.
So here goes.

Well I love fishing more than fishing i love catching fish (dont we all).I am lucky to stay close to some of possibly the best kayak fishing destinations in southern Africa and as a result catch a good amount. Now I am no tree hugger and keep some for the pot. But i also just keep enough. And try to release as much as possible. Even changed to just fishing single hooks in aid.

So on my last trip i had a couple of days when the razor gang (couta)came loose and had great fun catching this great fish. got some in the hatch and started to release.

Now the story breaks into two parts. A moral one and a safety one.

So paddling having fun caught a couta fixing up for release A moment of stupidity hands slip fish on my left knee flick it safely released or so i thought. As i looked down a 5cm long gash on my knee right down to the bone. Thinking now im in Deep deep s/#t not knowing the extent of the wound blood gushing 3km from launch site. Allot of things crossing my mind at this time.

Had my sports scarf with me tied down the wound to stop the bleeding and started to paddle back. I noticed the bleeding stopped and opted to inspect the wound. a nice clean cut skin and fat only no muscle or any vitals. (yes i did tie it closed and carried on fishing for another hour and 1 couta (not released further).

I was very very fortunate to only have this (minor) wound and things could have been far far worse. This had me reconsider my whole safety strategy and a small first aid kit will be part of my kit from now on. And will be much more aware of my surroundings.

Here is the moral part. So like i said i love catching fish.
On the days like that( the fish are biting like mad) do you catch only what you like to eat,and call it a day. do you catch and release with the possibility of something going wrong. What is the general feeling on releasing couta. (i have allot of good releases ) but got a big skrik after this.

Needless to say my passion for the sport is alive and well and i will be on the water soon again. ( was the next day)
Be Safe
Cheers
Malboer
 
F

FLUKE

Sealiner
Glad you are alright but you don't stop driving because you have one accident so please don't stop releasing because of one mishap.
That slip could just as well have occurred putting the fish in the hatch??
 
Z

zulu-X-treme

Sealiner
Over a year ago I was camping at Rocky Bay (South Coast) and decided one morning to swim out and dive for some Mussels... Suddenly and without warning I was sucked out to sea by a rip current and ended up being washed/bashed into a submerged rock covered in mussels about 1km out... :shock:

In all the commotion I decided to put my knees out in front of me instead of my hands and face, well needless to say my right knee was shredded just below the knee cap right through all my tendons and into the bone, not lekker at all... The swim back to shore was horrendous with this constant sensation of some loose skin flapping in the water with a definite trail of blood... :shock:

The point is, more than a year later, I'm still battling with the injury, my knee just isn't right yet... There's an old wife's tale, "If you get hurt in the sea, then stay away from the salt water until the wound has healed", and the opposite applies if you get hurt on land... Maybe I should have listened... :?

Look after that knee Malboer... ;)
 
T

trevour

Senior Member
My boet caught a cob, hook swallowed, and fish was kept. Then another one swallowed the hook, it died and was returned to the sea dead. He decided to stop targeting cob for the rest of the day. That will be the only reason I'd stop fishing when the fish are around, and I have my quota- for the fish's safety, unless off course there are conditions that make fishing dangerous on a specific day. There is plenty that can go wrong in our sport, but being nervous or scared, would probably make you a danger to yourself or others. You love catching fish - so you must take advantage when it is good.
 
H

hypershark

New member
Very lucky ...
The bacteria in he fishes slime can cause severe infections and in some cases even death , these are few obviously but its always good to be prepared and carry a small first aid kit with you!

In 2011 i had a gaff that we had used during the day on our boat and had gaffed a couple of fish ...cut my foot on the side , the cut was nothing a spider-man plaster couldnt fix , or so i thought ...

Long story short ... 3hours later searing pain like i cannot describe , swelling and the veins from my foot and up my leg were showing like crazy ... Get to the hospital and rushed to the ER where i was sedated for the pain and then spent a further 3days in there!:?
And so i learnt from the doctors that fishys can actually cause a great deal of trouble !

To this day , i dont go out without a first aid kit
 
V

victorius

Member
I read in a post that one should always keep some peroxide that the hair salons use handy. Apparently this helps kill the bacteria. I now have some in my fishing bag but have not used it as yet and hope I never have to. I am told it burns like crazy.
 
F

FLUKE

Sealiner
I agree on the First Aid Kit, when I started shark fishing I started carrying a First Aid Kit and now it goes everywhere I fish and has saved me on many occasions including an altercation with a Grey Sharks teeth and a very sharp rusty nail on a pole that sliced my finger open.

First Aid kit is now as essential as my fishing rods when I go fishing. It is a small Ultra Light pack from Sportsmans warehouse that I added some Betadine, Allergex and a bandage that bonds to itself and sticks even when it's wet without needing anything to hold it on.
 
F

Fredster

Senior Member
Not to hijack the thread but hopefully to contribute to it, Trevour and Malboers posts brought a few things to mind i thought i should share:
Circle hooks are a safety tool; lol. My son who is 15 now, has been fishing with me for years now, was one of the reasons i switched to circle hooks as there was less chance of accidental hooking, especially with a fish flapping in his lap. Prevention better than cure... But the other benefits were such that i totally converted to circles; no gut hooked fish, no foul hooked fish, easy to dehook and no lost fish due to frayed leaders from deep hooked fish.

For jigs and trolled lures, i substitute a livebait type hook for the trebles.. A few years ago a noob who was paddling with me capsized and in the process got tangled with his raplala and got a nice treble in his shin - apart from nearly drowning due to the entanglement, the tendon was damaged was a problem for a long time...
 
M

Malboer

New member
Lennons Staal druppels first to go into first aid kit stops bleeding at once and cleans out any bad that fish or hooks may have. comes in its own watertight container and is very cheap. a must have.

Thanks for all the replies
 
M

Malboer

New member
Verseker moes daar steke inkom maar paar ure se ry na die naaste mediese hulp het ek net nie voor kans gesien nie. Later toe ek by die huis kom wou die Dr. nie steke insit nie.
 
M

Malgas

Senior Member
Hi Malboer that's quite some bite! We have the same dilemma here in PE the Geelbek come thru thick, after long spells of been absent, and are relatively easy to catch when in feeding mode. We try to release, once we out quota, but they are a fish that seems to bleed easily, so we generally release the fish hoping it will recover or at best go back into the food chain. We then pack up and head in - two size Geelbek for the day are more than enough to eat! (Fredster has more success releasing by using circle hooks which is an option).

On the light side this weekend I got tagged by a Copper I had previously tagged. Had quite an interesting time at a reef we had fished before, caught 2 Yellowbellied Rockcod and 2 Red Steenbras. Tagged 2 and 2 already had tags, so recorded and released. Coincidently they were both fish I had tagged. The Copper had grown a couple of cm to 520mm and moved about 800m in about a year. As I was removing the hook- he turned around and tagged me on the top of my finger- bled like crazy but ok! They have quite serious fang-like teeth but it was a scratch compared to your injury! The Yellowbellied Rockcod are also a hassle to tag as they have razor-shark gill-rakers.
 
S

StuckOnDaRocks

Senior Member
Is that a vagina on your leg there Malboer? My word china that is terrible. I hope it healed ok.

I dropped a shad in my lap once...f*** knows how i didn't lose my nuts that day!! It was snapping about like crazy and I think it ended up on the end of my finger...bled profusely.
 
M

Malboer

New member
Ha ha ha ha

Yep sure looked like it and yes I can reach it with my ..... ha ha ha

Healed very well boet no problems what so ever. trust me when i say i was the one feeling like a vagina(sounds better in afrikaans) when it happened.

Hope all is well your side have not heard from you in a while.

Cheers
Malboer
 
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