Common Sense Evaluation

Nothing ruins a relaxing of day of fishing like catching yourself on your own fish hook. Here are two methods you can use to carefully remove the hook without causing serious damage.

The key to removing a fish hook, as this guide from The Art of Manliness explains, is minding the barb at the end of the hook. To remove it from your skin, you need to tie some line to the curved shank part of the hook, then apply pressure to the eye part of the hook to reduce the damage the barb will do on its way out. Keep the line taut while you push down on the eye, then quickly jerk on the line to pull the hook out. It will probably hurt still, but it’s the most efficient way to do it. If the hook is really far in there, the “advance and cut” technique has you push the hook the rest of the way through your skin. Once it’s through, you can clip off the barb and pull the hook easily through your skin.