Hemostats/Forceps Do You Use Them?

I always carry a pair. I usually don't need them, but occasionally even my barbless hooks need a little extra torque.

My girlfriend is a surgical physician assistant. Over the last year, she has supplied me with enough hemos, in just about every shape and size one could desire, to last a life time. When she was still in school, she did a rotation in MT. After she mentioned that I fished, the Dr.'s there (regulars on the Bighorn) made her take home several pairs for me to try out.
 
Wouldn't be without them, though I only use them when I have a hook inside the lip of a fish. then they're invaluable!
Coughlin
 
I use them for removing hooks from fish, and occasionally from people. And for use on split shot.

Let's see now, is it using, or not using, hemostats that is "elitist?"

The interjection of the "elitist" thang into a discussion of hemostats gave me a chuckle.

 
They are around my neck on a lanyard with my nippers and license. If the fish has the hook completely inside his mouth what else are you going to use?

I also use them for crimping split shot, they lock and can hold a hook while you tie something, very useful.
 
I use them regularly, sometimes to remove "barbless" hooks from my own finger (right Fox?).

Also to mash barbs down on hooks, snug shot on the leader, as well as taking fish off the hook.
 
On the same pair for the last decade or so. Use them mainly to tie on and equally as much to remove flies from fish. I would be lost without them.
 
Maurice wrote:
I have a pair attached to a zinger and I clamp them on the underside of my sling pack to keep them out of the way. Since I started using the zinger I have not lost a pair.

I do not debarb my hooks and try to pop the fly out with my fingers first. If its a tough one I use the hemos...actually a sort of plier. It never takes more than 15 or twenty seconds.

I find hemos a few times a year along the stream. I give them away.
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Maurice you are a genius. Bought the zinger today and can see how I will never lose another hemo. Please keep your eyes out for my Dr Slicks. Thanks fade out
 
I've been using mine to mainly to pinch down barbs but I think i'm just going to get a small pair of pliers. Hemos don't work as well, at least the kind I have...
 
I carry them, the kind with the curved end. I mostly use them for warm water fishing when I don't necessarily fish barbless. I use the curved end to tie my surgeons loop - stick the curved end through the loop to guide the ends through. Saves from having to use a long tag end, and waste a lot of leader. Rarely use them on a trout stream since I fish barbless - but like others have said, sometimes a trout will take a streamer deeper that normal, when drifting buggers. For stripping streamers, the hook is almost always in the corner of the mouth.
 
I use mitten clamps - first discovered their advantage to hemos when steelheading in cold weather - easy to use with gloves. In a pinch while sunfishing, I've used a twig with success.

 
I find them invaluable. I use them to put split shot on and off. I use them to make a cinch knot. I use them to connect two pieces of Tippett via a surgeons knot. I use them sometimes when a fish is hooked a little too deep. I can't fish without them. I have mine attached to a zinger and have never lost a pair.
 

One learns to appreciate a pair of hemostats truly the first time they sink the hook past the bend into their own hand.

They also never forget to crimp a barb again.
 
pcray1231 wrote:
I use them.

I have 2 remaining pair. I got them free for a long time, and the reason why is prime fodder for those who complain of excesses in the medical world.

After surgeries, they are discarded instead of re-used. Yes, they can be cleaned and re-used, they're stainless steel afterall. But they don't do that. Because some bean counter calculated that the danger of improperly cleaning and sterilizing would result in litigation much greater than just continually opening new ones out of sealed packages from the supplier in the operating room.
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That is not an industry wide standard. So, one could argue that institution is guilty of excess waste, but that is not the case nation wide.

I've done a whole lot of surgery in my career at a whole bunch of institutions and never seen hemostats disposed of after every case. The only disposable hemostats I see are the ones found in disposable suture removal kits that are often used on the hospital floors for inpatients. When I served as chief of surgery we had many discussions about reusable vs disposable instruments, and simple commonly used instruments like hemostats were never part of the discussion.

I only say this so that Pcray's statement is not used in your next argument about the waste in the American health care system. Don't get me wrong. There is a ton of waste, but tossing out hemostats after every surgery is not the issue across the nation. And believe me, if they were being tossed out after every case, I would be donating thousands upon thousands of them every year to you folks.
 
I loaned them to some teenagers and never got them back.
 
Sierra Trading Post had a ton of Dr. Slicks hemostats, in various styles, colors, and lengths a few years ago. I stocked up and added one to each of my fishing packs. Gave a few away to family members and still have a few. I prefer the black coated hemostats, as they do not reflect sunlight like stainless steel hemostats do. They are an invaluable tool, for all the reasons listed - reaming a hook eye that didn't get all the head cement cleared out when the fly was tied, clamping down on anything, extracting a small fly, or a deeper hooked fly, or a fly that is embedded in what feels like solid bone in a fish's lip, and unfortunately, more often than not, wriggling a fly out of a net, or out of my clothes..
 
From what I am reading Prof is an elitist. Hemos have a place
 
fadeaway263 wrote:
From what I am reading Prof is an elitist. Hemos have a place
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Yeah, clipped to his underarm hair. He probably just tells you you don't need them to get you riled up. Or because he doesn't have any. Except the ones under his armpit. Doesn't make him an elitist. I would think an elitist would USE hemos while unhooking his barbless hooks while not removing the fish from the water.

If he picks his fish out of the water, yanks the hooks out with his sausage fingers before taking a picture then he is a.....wait thats me.
 
Maurice wrote:
I have a pair attached to a zinger and I clamp them on the underside of my sling pack to keep them out of the way. Since I started using the zinger I have not lost a pair.

I do not debarb my hooks and try to pop the fly out with my fingers first. If its a tough one I use the hemos...actually a sort of plier. It never takes more than 15 or twenty seconds.

I find hemos a few times a year along the stream. I give them away.
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I use hemos and also keep them on a zinger. The one variation is that I stow them in one of the water bottle holders on my Fishpond Nimbus Guide chest pack (along with several other tools since I use a Camelback in lieu of water bottles) as opposed to clipping them to the pack. Keeps the glint and noise under control. I don't de-barb my hooks either, so if a standard de-hooking job takes more than a few seconds, I just go to the hemos. As has already been stated, they also work great on small sunfish, which love to swallow small flies all at once, often requiring hemos to reach them.
 
gfen wrote:

One learns to appreciate a pair of hemostats truly the first time they sink the hook past the bend into their own hand.

They also never forget to crimp a barb again.
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Gary, were you watching me fish on Monday? I broke my forceps last week and ordered some new ones. I decided to go fishing and this was the first time I didn't have forceps.
I was fishing with 2 flies and hooked a nice fish on the top fly. When I tried to remove the fly by hand, he jumped and buried the second fly in my finger tip and them it turned too. A little size 22. Even if you bend the barb, there may still be just enough sticking up to grab some meat.

When I got home, I called the Doctor and also found my new forceps in the mail.

I am BIG believer in using forceps.

Bill
 
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