HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — A hook in the head failed to stop Kyle McCormick, 17, from finishing out the second-chance day of the Costa Bassmaster High School National Championship, July 24, on Tennessee’s Carroll County Thousand Acre Lake.
A tough morning of fishing for McCormick and his Franklin County (Mississippi) High School teammate Will Moffett took a turn for the worse at 1:15 a.m.
“We had just pulled up to the dam and were fishing for a bit,” McCormick said. “A boat was trying to come in between us and the dam, so Moffett turned the boat a little bit with the trolling motor and went to cast a Carolina rig. It just came back too far, and at the angle it was at, it hooked me in the back of the head.”
McCormick initially thought the Carolina rigged Senko was just stuck in his hair, but when he tried pulling it out, he realized the hook had lodged into the back of his head. When they noticed the hook was buried past the barb, they decided to head for the emergency room.
After a long delay in the waiting room, McCormick entered the ER, where the medical staff pushed the hook through, then cut off the hook’s barb and pulled it back out of McCormick’s head.
McCormick then received a tetanus shot, a prescription and the hook that was embedded in his head.
“I took one of the pills and went back and fished for about another 30 to 45 minutes,” he said.
McCormick and Moffett weighed in only one bass (1 pound, 5 ounces) on the second-chance day and missed qualifying for the final round of the championship on Kentucky Lake.
