A grand time, hook and all ~ September, 2003
David Heiller It happened so fast that I can’t say for sure how it occurred. Maddie had just pulled in a nice walleye, and she gave me the honor of taking it off her lure. She could have done it herself, but I had offered and she had accepted. I took out my trusty Leatherman, opened the pliers, and was pulling at the hook when the walleye gave a mighty shrug and the next thing I knew, a hook was seriously stuck in the little finger of my right hand. Grace and Maddie in the front of David's canoe The fish was still flopping on one end of the Zip lure, and Maddie was pulling the line tight enough to land a 20-pound northern — or in this case a 230-pound German — on the other. Those, two actions drove the hook in one side of my finger and out the other. I hollered something that can’t be repeated here, and the walleye flopped off and Maddie loosened her line, and I sat looking at a big problem. Everything had been perfect up to that point. We were on a seclu...