Red Rock Cod

[Fishslayer]

I went off Terrigal NSW for a bottom bounce with a mate the other day and i hooked one of them pesky Red Rock Cod - AKA - Poor Mans Lobster. Been catching them since i first started fishing many moons ago. Anyways, i went to flick this little bugga off the side of the boat and the pliers slipped and the fish whacked me on me right index finger. It stung like blazes and i tried to suck out whatever it jabbed into me but it didnt really help. The finger started hurting big time and then started going numb. After a while the sting turned to a annoying ache and the numbness spread upwards towards my wrist. For about the next 5 hours half my hand was numb and sore. The numbness was nearly gone by the next day but i still have a little pain almost a week later, especially if i touch the finger. Oh, we went out wide after i got jabbed and it wasnt real easy or much fun trying to pull up kingies and pink perch from 350 feet with my gammy hand.
Moral of the story, beware the spines of the ugly red fish.

[Noelm]

hhhmmm the guy who said they are "poor mans lobster" has never eaten lobster.

[blaze]

hi mate
its blazes here, dont blame me for the hurt in ya hand.
little secret
gut the offending fish and there is a little sack inside them and ya bust that and rub it over the offending wound (cant remember the color of the sack)
feel ya pain
cheers
blaze

[marlinqld]

Man that is a head only a mother could love........ ;D :o

[Tony_N]

They say you alleviate the pain with HOT water. Actually any heat will do it, so if you have a smoker on board flick the lighter and heat the metal part of the lighter by holding it a bit sideways. Put the hot (as hot as you can bear) metal of the lighter on the affected area (after you have swtched the flame off :)). This gives some relief.

We call 'em red harries down here.

[Jewmaster]

Hot water is the trick, same as catfish. You need to submerge your finger in cold, water and add as much hot water as you can bare. The poison of the catfish is a protien (so I have been told) much like a egg white. When you heat the protiens in the posions enough they go stiff and congealed. Preventing it from spreading in your blood stream and de-naturing some of the effect, You will still have a localised effect buy it prevents it spreading.

Old story is if you get hit too many times in one hand you may have joint pain in later years.

Picked this trick up from the poor Wildlife guys in darwin who have to go and net and count catfish, nothing like pulling 20 catfish from a net, bound to get spiked.

The problem with using a hot piece of metal or cigarrette is it burns the skin and does further damage. The other story i heard was if you left hand is throbbing with pain, burn your right hand and you won;t notice the left anymore, it relates to knowing the burn pain and being able to overcome that sensation with ice water ect, but in the meantime you have forgotten your original pain. (not worth it)

[Fishslayer]

Hey Blaze, chuckling here mate. Thanks for the info , i shall look it up now you have got my curiousity up .

Thanks Tony_N but i dont have a lighter on board. I did have a full thermos of coffee, i wonder how i woulda gone soaking the finger in a cuppa? Wouldnt be the first time i have stirred a coffee with my finger.

Jewmaster, that makes sense about the protiens, somone else told me that recently. Not sure about burning the other hand thing tho. Sounds like burn ping pong, keep going from one hand to the other. I reckon my fishing mates would throw me overboard once they stopped pissin themselves laughing at me.

[fishn-ads]

Right on Tony, Hot water is the go! as hot has you can handle with out burning.

I got stabbed at Hayes inlet buy a lepord(?) ray a couple of years back in my index finger the pain was so bad had to head home and no onboard would drive the boat or reverse the trailer. Got home and was lying on the floor in pain, wife at the time said ring ambulance, nah ring dad he'll know what to do? So she rings him he says ring an ambulance. By this time my whole left upper body was killing me. Ambulance comes say go to hospital. Get to hospital they hit me with a vile(?) of morphine pain still killing, old nurse comes along with bowl of hot water pain gone in second (or at least camouflaged) doctor says give him another shoot nothing give another "3" viles of morphine later I was feeling great.

The bugger of a ray had cut the tendon in my finger so of into surgery the next day. Three weeks without my left hand.

Anyhow at least I worked out "2" things 1. Hot water for stings / Cold water for bites and 2. That a hook, swivell and sinker are a lot cheaper than 3 weeks pay!

Heres a pic of the scare gotta love scares.

Ads

[marlinqld]

i got hit twice in the big toe 3 months ago by a catty on Logan River.

Pain was so bad had to go to Redlands Hospital. First thing they did was shove my foot into a bowl of hot water. The protein thingy is spot on in an earlier post.

I needed two needles of local in the toe and a shot of morphine before the pain went away $hite it hurt like buggary man. Toe was sore as for a few days after it.

Mike

[Jewmaster]

Had a catfish spine go through my little toe, the wound didn't heal for a very long time. Had another in the throw net and while untangling it, jammed the spike up under the nail on my thumb.....oooowwwwwwww. Dad caught a very big catty at gunn Point, released it, once he had rebaited, wlaked out into the water to cast and stepped on the catty, big spike, went in a long way, everyone ran up with vinegar thinking his shouting was from a box jelly fish.

[Jackinthebox]

Fishslayer,

you need to get some revenge on the red rockies - with a filleting knife and a kevlar glove like I did years ago. The snapper were not playing ball so I took home 5 big ones.

I don't think they taste like lobster though, more like crab to me.

Revenge is sweet! ;D

Mick.

The Red rocky muncher

[R_K_HILL]

Looks a little like the lion fish...

So, If you get stung by a lion fish, just curious, do you do the hot water trick?

[Smailesy]

that is a ugly fish

[Fishslayer]

Hey Hilly, from what the other fellas have said about the protien thing, makes sense to do the same hot water thing for the lionfish. I know that in future i will be a hell of a lot more careful, but i'll also put the real old thermos full of hot water in the boat - just in case. Not gonna let the little ugly spiny red fella ruin a days fishin !! and we get lots of them around here.

And Red Rocky Muncher, i have tried the bigger ones before and i thought the flesh was more like lobster than crab because it was tougher than crab.. kind of held together more like lobster. And "Red Rocky Muncher "could be burned into my tuna donger when i get time, it'll have a dual purpose then.. the multi tasking tuna donger. Teach them red uglies to slay the Slayer !!!

And as for the catfish lads, looks like i got out of it pretty easy compared to you guys... morphine.. wow. Only ever caught a cattie in Canada but it was pretty docile one , bit slow.. no offence to Canadians.. EH.

[DICER]

hot wax might also be the go.... [smiley=whip.gif] [smiley=whip.gif]

the heating denatures the proteins/peptides involved in the pain inflamation response (before it denatures your hand!!)

My grandad was laid up by the red rock cod many many blue moons ago.

I wouldn't put any gut material on an open wound.

[fishingbarry]

Always use water that is as hot as you can handle,the trick is to test the water temp with the opposite hand/foot as the spiked one is slightly numbed. There are stories of people boiling the skin off feet trying to stop stone fish pain. Keep changing the water so its as hot as possible as long as possible. ALWAYS CHECK WITH THE GOOD ONE NOT THE CROOK ONE. ;)
Cheers
Barry

[where_is_dave]

Does the hot water work for flatties as well?

The wound seems to bleed more and longer from a flattie than a cattie is this because of different toxins?

Never been tagged by one of those red fuglies but it only took me two goes one flattie and one cattie to learn that gloves are a good thing.

Feelin your pain,

Dave

[Fishslayer]

I've had many a spike by a flattie but it was nowhere near as bad as the red rockie one. Somone once told me that you rub the slime off the flattie onto the jab and that seems to help a lot. I haven't tried that yet and hopefully i wont need to.

Years ago a few of us went fishing for flatties after a rather hard night on the drink. Jacko was spiked by a flattie and it was that bad we had to take him to hospital as we thought he was having a heart attack. It wasnt , just the jab was pretty deep and he was quite hung over and i guess it made it feel worse than normal. We still pay out on him over that one.

The wax sounds a little kinky, but hey, if it works then its worth a shot !!