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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a freelance writer and photographer , Rob Newell has been reporting on fishing tournaments for 20 years , finding the stories between fish and angler to be a stretched line of heroes , heartache , triumph , torture , inspiration and exasperation .
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B ack in school , years ago , I took physics and chemistry classes . I studied myriad scientific laws in those classes – Newton ’ s Laws , Boyles ’ s Law , Kepler ’ s Law – but it wasn ’ t until I got into the real world that I discovered the one that best applied to me : Murphy ’ s Law , which plainly states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong .
As it turns out , fishing can be fertile ground for Murphy ’ s Law to rear its ugly head . Fish long enough and perfect storms of circumstance will form . In the moment , these incidents can be terrifying or embarrassing , but all are considered rites of passage in the
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fishing world ; experiencing them is what earns you a seat at the story-telling table with your buddies . You can try to avoid them , but be forewarned : These are angling inevitables .
If you ’ ve been doing it long enough , one or all of these befuddling occurrences have come up in conversation over a round of drinks . If you ’ re just starting out or have been fortunate enough to avoid these follies so far … well , just know it won ’ t be like that forever .
Painful Perforation
We shudder at the thought of it , but eventually it ’ s going to happen . It usually occurs in the form of a hook in the hand
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while trying to unpin a fish . A 12-inch bass thrashing trebles around like a whirling dervish is the usual suspect .
The whole thing happens so fast that you likely don ’ t notice it initially . But when your brain catches up to your eyes and the reality sets in that a treble hook is buried in your own flesh , you might squeal like a baby . Not that I would know .
In most cases , your predicament looks far worse than it really is . I ’ ve experienced it several times , and hook removal is usually completely painless . If you ’ ve not had the pleasure of being hooked , watch a few YouTube videos on how to remove a hook with a
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