Amy M. Avery, M.A.Ed., Freelance Writer

by Amy M. Avery

 [Some notes:    1. Every word is true.*     2. Don't read this before a meal.       3. It's O.K. to laugh, really.]

My friend laid out the Outdoor section of the 7.18.10 Maine Sunday Telegram just to watch my reaction. The headline, "Hooked on Kayak Fishing. Seriously," seemed like a marginally cruel, but rather well timed joke. Since the previous Sunday morning--almost to the hour--I'd been replaying my own headlines, something like, "Kayakers hooked on lure. Literally." If you note the fact that "kayakers" is plural in my headline, and "lure" is not, you get a perhaps puzzling snapshot of my all-day turned half-day outing on the Maine coast. It included barbed hooks, commandeered canoes, a great Maine guide, and a couple of emergency crews. And me, a somewhat experienced kayaker from North Carolina who just wanted to enjoy a nice outing up the pretty marsh that is the Scarborough River, near Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

On this particular Sunday in July, I and about eight other kayakers of various levels of experience are a couple of hours in to our day. Though I have a broken pinky finger--diagnosed just a week prior at the local hospital--I'm having a nice time with these folks I'd met just that morning. In high tide on the narrow river, fellow Paddler Peter and I spot a very pretty, 6" lure that is bobbing alongside us. Within 30 seconds, Newbie Peter learns what all kayakers must learn: Reach out too far from your boat, and you experience what we call a "wet exit."  He overturns. But Tipping Peter tips towards me, and reaches out to my boat for balance. So I put all my attention on remaining upright, and I am successful despite his considerable attempts to keep himself upright.

As he's completing his entry into the river, I realize he's pulling my arm somehow. I look down to see this prize of a lure in play. Things are still a bit fuzzy because all happened so quickly. But in my fellow boater's attempt to land the lure, it landed him with one of nine barbed hooks, piercing the upper layers of skin in his hand. Though a rather unusual situation among kayakers who aren't even fishing, neither the swim nor the hook would normally be much of a problem. But freakishly, in his reaching out to balance on my kayak, two hooks on the other end of lure have nabbed me quite firmly in the fleshy inner arm below my elbow. We're joined.

I won't go into detail to describe how a human flailing in the water, however briefly, can pull on a hook, or on two hooks. Thankfully, my new kayak-fishing partner immediately treads one-handed the few inches to reach my boat. We now have a fisherman's three-legged race-type situation, where three hooks and two arms replace the gentle silk neckties that join partners in that other summertime sport.

So there we are, my new fishing buddy, Peter, in the water, me in my kayak, my forearm joined to his hand, and our capable Maine guide parallel to me in his kayak, all drifting with wind and tide. Not a fisherman, I, the lure seems designed to catch a rollicking, raging swordfish. It's actually for rough and tumble striper, I find out later. Our guide has almost every conceivable rescue tool available, but nothing can touch any part of these nine thick hooks. The riverbank is too steep to negotiate, and I'm not at this point interested in getting out of my kayak with a human attached to me with three hooks. He sends a fellow kayaker ahead to shore, "quickly," he urges, to scout out a Leatherman from maybe another kayaker or a real fisherman.

Prune-skinned Peter spends the next 20-30-40 minutes hanging onto my boat as our guide works on the lure. The guide calls 9-1-1 and attempts to explain the situation, but rightly settles for just mentioning kayakers, fishhooks, water, and our location. Passing kayakers don't have a Leatherman, either, but they offer up a can of bug spray, which my bobbing buddy desperately needs. His head is now stuffed up against the grasses of the marsh bank, the sun's out brightly--and the pests come swarming in pairs. Greenhead Peter can't defend himself. I try to slap the biters away from him as best as I can, but my free arm can only reach so far across my life jacket and down to his level. Poor fellow.

This entire time, we've been in sight of a roadway and our new destination, the Audubon center along the river. But that's still a 10-minute snake-like paddle for those who have two arms, vs. one, or especially three. The river is quite circuitous, bending back and forth on itself like one-dimensional switchbacks on mountain roads. Our scout returns by kayak with the only tool around, a big but dull pair of wire cutters that someone on shore apparently found in the bottom of a long-abandoned toolbox. They're useless against Raging Striper Lure.

While our guide continues to work on the Prize, we all share a little laugh, the in-joke being that now two ambulances, a fire truck, and a small crowd are assembled by the road. But there's no watercraft (or tools) yet in sight. Brian asks 9-1-1 about the boat they plan to bring. Boat?, she asks. He again mentions water, the river, kayakers, and fish hooks. And rolls his eyes just a bit.

Eventually, rescuers commandeer two canoes, paddle towards us, land on the marsh bank and walk over to our little flotsam party. When they reach us, the first rescuer's first misstep is off the cliff-like edge of the marsh, into the water. To steady herself, Rescue Girl pulls a "Peter" and reaches for my boat for balance. I fear for a moment that I'm about to go over, possibly in the direction away from my hook buddy, until I'm distracted by a familiar feeling.  I say quite emphatically to stop rocking the boat, that the hooks are pulling my arm. She tells me to calm down, that she's doing the best she can. (Really?) So I calmed down so she would calm down. I and guide Brian share a little eye contact and slight shaking of the heads. I'm not clear why local rescue workers wouldn't know the river is steep and deep at high tide--or why neither noticed that all they could see of Victim 1 was a head floating just above water, right at their toes. But before my boat settles fully from Rescue Girl's rescue, Rescue Guy unexpectedly joins her in the water. He only rocks my boat a little this time.

Our rescuers apparently have a better tool, which thankfully works just fine when wet. Rescue Girl wants to look like she knows the best plan of attack, but honestly, who trains for a situation like this? After some head scratching and multiple attempts, she does fine, in the end. (I guess it was her who worked on the Prize. I wasn't really interested in watching that reality show right then.) They break us free. Hook hand Peter now has a half-hook in his hand, and I'm wearing the full lure like a piece of jewelry secured alongside my arm. They get poor Greenhead Peter up to the marsh and into commandeered canoe #1. Since the water is still high, I take a ride in my kayak as they pull it directly from the water onto the marsh, where I walk to commandeered canoe #2. We head off to the same ED that diagnosed my broken finger the Sunday before.

From the EMTs to the hospital staff, everyone kind of yawned to hear of another coastline fishhook injury. Until they saw Raging Striper Lure. Until they saw two barbed hooks in my arm so deep that neither could poke back out of the flesh. Until I said I wasn't even fishing. (That last detail yielded raised eyebrows and a kind of sympathetic half-smile from some.) But when I told them that Lurebait Peter was joined with me on the other end of this freebie, in the water, in the river, 1/4 mile from shore, for 40 minutes, then they agreed this was new. Just having two people hooked with one lure was new enough, apparently. The E.R. doctor grimaced a bit and studied his challenge carefully--who trains for this type of thing, really?--came in and out of the room with various tools, and finally dug it out. He asked to keep my Prize, it was so impressive. The lure was fairly new and still complete, except for the hook he was about to get out of Peter in the room next to me. But I claimed that lure, since I wore it in.

The newspaper feature about kayak fishing that following Sunday mentioned that "the thrill of catching a striper on a fly rod grows exponentially in a kayak." Neither Tipping Peter nor I is sure which of us was doing the catching, but "thrilling" isn't a word we'd choose. I'll be giving wide berth to hooks--free or not--from now on. Any additional kayak fishing's out for me, too. Whoever thought to put those two activities together, anyway? But a lot of things went right that day, including a highly capable Maine guide, a calm hook-mate, life jackets, and favorable weather. And I'm now assuredly up-to-date on my tetanus.

Just like one-hook Peter, I saw that shiny striper bait in the water and wanted it too. It seemed a grand souvenir. From other kayaking trips, however, I'd learned not to reach out from a kayak unless you want to end up in the water.  This vacation taught me two more lessons: don't paddle close to anyone, ever, and never reach for pretty fish-looking things. They're kayaker bait.

Epilogue: Kayak Rescue Clinic

Several nights after this trip, I headed off to the Emergency Room again because of an unusual pain in my arm. All was OK, and the doc said I could even return to kayaking, including an upcoming kayak rescue clinic that the friendly Maine guide was running. "I might even prescribe the clinic," he somewhat joked. Riding home along the coast that night, I commented to my friend on how very high the tide was. How pretty. Then I remembered that my kayak was still at the beach, and was not tethered. I was cleared to kayak, but spirits sank to think perhaps I no longer had one. So off we go at 1 a.m. with flashlights and headlamps. The tide's so high there's not much beach. I can't see my boat. I stumble across rocks and dodge waves crashing at my knees to reach the site, and I spot her. She's relatively safe. It's too dark and the surf's too rough to move her, so I tie her securely to huge flotsam. Glad the doc had cleared me for learning kayak rescues, but that really wasn't what I'd had in mind.

Updates:

• Maine guide Brian now has a Leatherman.
• Peter now worries about fish. He plans to ask a marine life friend if they feel pain. If so, fishing is cruel, he says.
• Word's out around Kennebunkport about the "Hook Trip." "Did you hear?," someone asked one of my new kayaking friends. "I was there," she replied. They had most of the details right, she says, but she thinks by next summer there might be a striper attached to the lure with me and Peter.
• One paddler on that trip came up with a tweetable version for her co-workers the following Monday. "About eight of us went out kayaking," she told them cheerily. "Six made it back with us. But we were able to retrieve all the boats."
• Prize Lure is now home in North Carolina, packed safely and ready for mounting.
• My broken pinky is healing fine, though I spent 2 weeks using it to write a class for a client on "preventing and treating fractures."
  
• Mom says the ED staff in Maine is going to miss me. It's true, I guess. I got a nice "we miss seeing you" note from them when I failed to show up the fourth week in a row.*

*Except for the "we miss you note" mentioned above, every word of this tale is true.

copyright Amy M. Avery 2010

Seems it's been an eventful summer for independent healthcare communications consultants. Check out my colleague Leigh Fazzina's story for another New England 2010 adventure--also in the name of recreation and exercise.