Lessons learned

40 Creek will fix you up.....just ask DD lol

Those catfish are a mess . If i get stuck it is a major ordeal . Affects me like a snake bite or worst . So i try to be careful and i have catfished all my life . Twice they put me in the bed and i though i was gonna die . That little gadget ez mad and gave me works good . You can shake them off the side of the boat or cooler or live well . No slime on you . And i hate treble hooks . One set on a bait would be enough for me , be careful watch them things .

Wondering does anyone pinch the barbs on the trebles down flat? Since crappie are the target I wouldn't think barbs would matter especially how deep they usually eat them. May make a painfull mistake a little less painful and maybe save one or two short fish too. Going to flatten mine since I fish by myself a lot.

Those catfish spines are not only painful but can cause serious infection. My late uncle lost his balance in the boat stumbled around and stepped on one and the spine went through his shoe and into his foot. The infection got so bad that we thought he might lose his foot, but a couple of days in the hospital on an IV drip stopped the infection from going up his leg. Sure didn't stop him from cat fishing though.

run your hand up his back and raise his dorsal fin strait up in the v between your thumb and index finger. Then squeeze firmly and he will know who is boss then. Just like anything else if you give them and inch they will take a mile. I have had 10 or 15 in the boat thrashing around before and one went through my toe. Its a terrible pain that no one wants to go thru

You goobers are making me queasy just reading about your misfortunes.

I posted some pics a while back of my doe that had a catfish fin in her leg. Took a trip to the er and a near arse whooping to a dot head doctor to get it out but she recovered well.
And I love eating catfish. But u gotta watch those little un's.

I don't have a real problem with the channel cats or cats in the 1 - 2lb size because I can grip them ok. Down here on the coast, we have these saltwater cats (locally called hardheads) tha are quite often small (8 inches or so) and they never stop flipping around when I get them in the boat. I can hardly ever grab them and I always get stuck by them in the hands when I try and release them and it'll hurt for days.

Now that I have tapatalk here is a pic of my wound from the catfish from hell. That's not my knee !

Wow...i got a good laugh out of that one...it read like a scene from a comedy movie. Glad you're alright.