I Was Almost Killed By Discarded Fishing Line!

Properly Dispose Your Used Fishing Line!

For years i've pushed for anglers to clean-up their areas for others. I've stepped on a circle hook once & it was painful extracting it. I usually spend the first 10min cleaning someone else's mess before i set-up my gear. I'd rather see plastics in a garbage can rather then around a Sea Turtle's neck.

So this day i got to my site extremely early & started to set-up my shore casting rigs. I had enough natural light to see enough of my surroundings to maneuver around. I walked across a cliff overhang to set my first rig up & hopped over a open fissure as i've done for years. This time my foot got snagged & i went down through the fissure head first roughly 8ft to the reef. I was lucky a swell came in to cover the rocks with 2ft of water seconds before impact. I instinctively put my right hand forward to help break the fall.

The next thing i remember was gasping for air as i was swallowing salt water. My right wrist was in pain & my leg was torn-up scraping the rocks going down. My shorts was partially torn as my backside got a puncture. If things were different i could've been knocked-out, or worse. All because a fisherman left 100's of yards of discarded fishing line all over the sharp rocks. I was there 2 days earlier & no line was there. If this was thrown in the water it would kill endangered Green Sea Turtles which congregate in numbers exactly where i landed.

Right now i'm not sure if my right wrist is merely badly sprained or fractured. My right leg is hurting & my backside is not only hurting but constantly bleeding. At the early morning twilight hours i couldn't make out the fishing line. If the line was in the water it could kill many endangered local species like Green Sea Turtles to Hawaiian Monk Seals by entanglement.

I'm in extreme pain & don't know how long this will sideline me. This happen all because a lazy angler most likely decided to re-spool his/her casting reel & left all the line just laying around to cause injury & possible death to wildlife. I spent 30min just cutting that line up & disposing it in a garbage can that was only 60-80ft away!

Please pick-up after your selfs. I always bring garbage bags for exactly this. I'm sharing my story here in hopes it'll ring a bell that says respect your environment.

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It just goes to show that irresponsible anglers are all around the world,looks as though it is an iffy place to fish,risk wise,but no pain no gain as they say. Here's hoping your injuries clear up,you need the wrist x-rayed,because it may cause real problems if it is actually fractured.

Definitely get the wrist x-ray'd as leaving it could cause complications later. I speak from experience following a mighty tumble when playing tennis, of all things.....

Unfortunately, nothing will ever change around this sort of thing, simply because it is beyond some people to understand. You have discarded line on a beach/rocks, I have the same class of ****** who thinks it fine to down his drink in the car, wind down the window, and lob in out into the countryside where I live, and this along with food cartons and crisp packets. Even if you could find the culprits and explain the issue in simple terms, they would, in all likelyhood still do exactly the same thing the following day.

You were extremely fortunate to get away with the injuries you have..........


Hope your'e healed and ready to go again, pretty soon.

I fell over at work,had to have an op to fit a plate around 18 months ago,it was a real hurry,hurry job too,as if it would have knitted as it was would have seriously affected my mobility,that's not including the serious risk of rheumatoid arthritis I think,certainly something along those lines.

Thanks for sharing your unfortunate experience. A very ertinant post , well said.

I hope you make a full and swift recovery Chris! Idiots are the same the world over!

Sorry to here that, hope you recover soon.

On the subject of discarded line, I would always put used hooklenghths etc. In a pocket of my bag, but sometimes I found that when I got home they had fallen out.
I've got this thing called a monomaster now, which you wind any old line onto, brilliant bit of kit for trimmings and old leaders, but it ain't going to deal with hundreds of yards of 20lb!

Thanks! Yes, not the safest place but it's magical watching the sunrise & forming rainbows

Yes i was. Thanks!

I wrote the State to see if they can make a sweep of the area to make it safer. No word yet.

I'm getting much better, thanks mikench. Still not much strength in my wrist but the pain is nowhere as bad as before. I walk like Frankenstein due to the dried scabs.