Shark Fishing with a Dropper Rig – Don’t Do It!!!
by
David Dockery
During a recent trip to St. Simons Island, I took the opportunity to get in a
little inshore fishing. Since it had been a number of years since I had fished
the Georgia Coast and not knowing the tidal creeks and rivers around Brunswick
very well, I decided that shark fishing would provide my best chance for
success. Twenty years ago when I
was in graduate school at UGA, Jim Music, who used to work at the Coastal
Resources Division of DNR in Brunswick, took me and a few friends fishing for
sharks in Jekyll Creek, behind Jekyll Island. We were very successful that day, so, here all these years
later, I felt like I could pull off the same kind of success on sharks.
I rigged dead bonito with 2 hooks, because I didn’t want to
risk losing half a baitfish to a short striker. Time being of the essence, my 2-hook rigs were hardly in
accordance with IGFA standards and I wasn’t too concerned about the possibility
of landing a new world record.
After we anchored, it was only about 10 minutes until we had
our first fish on. As my fishing
partner, Chris, brought what appeared to be a 30 pound sandbar shark to the
boat, I grabbed the wire leader and began working on removing the “stinger”
hook from the shark’s mouth with a pair of pliers. Things seemed to be going well until the pliers slipped off
the hook and the fish yanked the other dangling hook (which I had been largely
ignoring) through my left hand.
The fun for me ended at this point.
Thank goodness he was only 30 pounds! I quickly pulled the fish back to the
boat and started using the wire cutters to cut loose everything in sight. My only thoughts were, “It’s going to
be a long grueling trip back to the launch ramp.” Chris let me drive the boat to keep me occupied, while he
navigated with the GPS and monitored my state of consciousness. It took about an hour to get to the
launch ramp, and load the boat on the trailer. It took another half hour to find and get to the closest
hospital.
In the Emergency Room, I tried to be as nonchalant as
possible, while walking around with a 12/0 hook sticking out of my hand. Not wanting to freak out the other
patients in the ER, the receptionist quickly scuttled me back to the triage area.
The triage nurse didn’t immediately notice my problem, as
she started working on getting my vital signs. When she asked me what my problem was, I gestured towards my
hand. I think her comforting words
to me were “Oh God” or something to that effect when she saw my issue. She told me they take hooks out of people about once a week,
but she had never seen a hook that big in anyone. She then ask me if she could take this picture:
The Physician’s Assistant who treated me was from Kenya and
spoke English with a heavy accent.
He did provide me with an opportunity to ask “Unasema Kiswahili?” which
is not something I’ve used very much since learning the language skills
necessary to be an African professional big game hunter at White County High
School in 1982. He told me that he
expected it would take quite a while to SAW!!! through the hook sticking out of
my hand.
After his initial assessment, a nurse brought in a syringe
the size of a turkey baster full of Novocain and laid it gently on the
stainless steel tray in front of me.
(Oh Boy!)
The PA came back in a few minutes and began using the
syringe with reckless abandon. The
impalement by the hook was nothing compared to being worked over by that
syringe. My hand literally blew up
like a balloon with all the Novocain under my skin. As my Kenyan friend left the room, I sat there with cold
sweat beaded up on my balding forehead, waiting for his return.
When he came back a few minutes later, he carried in his
hands something akin to a battery powered Dremel tool with a diamond saw blade
attachment. He worked about 5
minutes carefully cutting through the hook above the barb. He then rounded the rough edges and
backed the hook out of my hand.
Finally, I was free!
The nurse then produced another huge syringe full of
Betadine (thankfully without a needle this time). My PA squirted the equivalent of several shot glasses full
of the reddish brown liquid through the back of my hand until it ran out my
palm. He blotted everything off,
gave me a most lovely Tetanus shot, and prescriptions of antibiotics and pain
killers. He told me not to bandage
the hand, unless I risked getting it dirty, because he wanted it to
“weep”.
Despite my description of the events in the ER, the staff at
the Brunswick Campus of the Southeast Georgia Health System all did an
excellent job. My poor attempts at making light of the situation were all anxiety and shock induced. Thanks to their efforts, I was able to pick up where I left off without missing a thing. I spent the next 3 days masking my hand
and walking around with a pocket full of surgical gauze.
Despite a swollen hand, I felt good enough the evening of
the next day to try it again. We
didn’t catch any fish, but I did learn that SeaTow charges $300/hr. to come and
get you when your boat breaks down.
That’s another story for another day.
In the meantime, if you would like for me to take you shark
fishing on the Georgia coast, please give me a call!
