Ever hear of a man with a hook hand?

So one afternoon, we were out against a reef that usually holds GT and a rather large rip that forms over it. Ken and I start banging away with poppers. The waves coming up over the reef are actually pretty darn big. I had my popper coming down the face of one when - boom....GT on. I was out on the end of the catwalk of the outrigger and Michael was busy at the back of the boat, so I landed the fish myself and dragged it onto the wood deck. So the GT starts to go nuts on me. I still had my rod in one hand and in attempt to subdue the fish, one of the very large trebles (7/0) caught my thumb. Yup, you guessed it - I didn't smash the barbs down. I looked at it and it looked like the barb wasn't down through the skin yet, so I dropped the rod thinking I'd just yank it out quickly, but the GT did one big flop on the deck and that was all she wrote - the point that entered at the first joint was now just about to poke out of the front of my thumb. About a million things went through my head at that point. I knew before we even got to Christmas Island that this is not the type of place you want something like this to happen. I knew I had a pretty big problem on my hands, but an even bigger problem is having about a 20lb GT still alive and still on the other treble. The popper it was on was huge, so I grabbed the top of it with both hands to prevent the fish from ripping the hook violently out of my hand. At this point, I don't think they knew yet what was going on at the back of the boat, so I yelled back - "Ken, I've got a problem here". The fish is still going nuts at this point and now I have Michael also holding onto the top of the popper. I yelled to Ken - "get the orange tool bag in my duffel - and grab the multi-tool, it has Carbide cutters". Trying to cut these trebles was useless - I made sure I put the strongest trebles and split rings made on my plugs before I came to Christmas - Owner ST66 7/0 Stinger trebles and 180 lb Owner HyperWire rings. I had 4 pliers in that bag and kept yelling to Ken to try another one. I was sure the offshore wire rigging pliers I had would do the job, but the wire of the hook around the eye was such a large diameter that it wouldn't fit the cutter on the offshore pliers. At this point, Russ had gotten the outrigger far enough away from the rip that he could come up and help. He brought a big pair of linesman pliers up that was completely rusted. It looked like it could do the job with those massive jaws, but it couldn't, and Russ was cranking as hard as he could with both hands until they were shaking. At this point, the fish is still going nuts, so I yell - "someone kill the damn fish". Michael beat it on the head many times, but GT are tough fish, so finally, he takes a pair of needle nose pliers and sends it right through one of the eyes and almost to the other side. So we still have a hook in me and on the fish. I told Ken to just grab the split ring pliers and work the ring off of the popper. After we got the hook off, I knew we still had a big problem. I tried pulling the hook as hard as I could, but it was just embedded so deep into the muscle that it wouldn't budge. We packed all the gear and headed back to the village. Michael said they had a guy at a clinic there that could take the hook out.

Back at the village, our host brought me to the clinic, which was nothing more than a concrete bunker with no doors, and a few large rooms that were nearly empty. I looked down the hallway and saw people lying on the floor in a fetal position moaning in pain. I'm not going to go into the details more than that, but when I got back from this incident, I said to Ken - "you have to pray you never suffer a real injury here on this island - because you will die or lose a limb for sure". This is why we got the air evacuation insurance for this trip. Anyway, so I'm standing against the wall and this short dark-skinned man wearing nothing more than a brightly colored towel comes over and starts talking to another gentleman that was there. This was apparently the doctor, and could not speak English, so the other person translated for me. After looking at my hand, the doc says something to the other guy and then looks at me. I ask the other dude what he said and he says - "he wants to know if you brought any painkillers with you". I thought - great, this is going to be fun. I knew right then that this thing was coming out "old school" style. After a while, the doc (without gloves, or even washing his hands) grabs a single edged razor, unwraps it and starts to hack away at my hand while the other guy is holding my wrist down on the chair. I got a little worried because this guy was like 90 years old, looked like Yoda, and was shaking like crazy. It turns out that he apparently knew what he was doing. He kept telling the other dude that he had to go slow because the barb was under a tendon and nerves and didn't want to cut them. At this point, I had blood dripping down my hand and onto my pants. After about 20 minutes, he finally got it out and we wrapped it with some tape that I brought with me in a small medical hit. That was it - done. So I ask the dude that was translating - "how do I pay him?". After a short conversation between the two, he says - "he wants to know if you have American dollars". I indicated that I did and then he says - "twenty". I looked at him a little strange, but didn't argue - I said no problem, I just have to come back with the money because I don't have any on me right now. Michael came over that night and asked if we were good and I said - we're good to go fishing tomorrow AM. By the way, when I walked out of the place and started leaving, the dude that was translating came running out and gives me the treble back. I thought cool, it's in great shape, I'll just put it back on. I figured it would bring good luck. It apparently did, as it is this very hook that landed me a world-class fish the next day.