Telescoping Fish Knocker

These tools are quite familiar to myself and to anyone else who grew up fishing in Wisconsin. They were and still are must haves when fishing for muskellunge and northern pike, even if you only practice catch and release. The mouths of these fish are chock-full of razor sharp teeth, and they could easily strip off all the flesh from a finger or even bite it off while you are extracting the hook. Another necessity is a pair of safety gloves, the kind that protect the hands from knife cuts.

I'd rather have a fisherman catch one fish, knock its brains out immediately, and take it home for dinner; than have him catch a dozen for "sport", torture them by air-boarding, rip his hook out and throw them back into the water bleeding and about to be infected by whatever amoeboid that's swimming around. So yes, this is a good idea.

I'd call it the Pocket Whacker!

Maybe I've become too cynical for my own good, but there's no way I'd ever Google that. There have just been too many times I've uncovered unexpected correlations to pornography. And by 'unexpected correlations' I mean large images of disgusting filth flashing across the screen.

Typical: A few years ago, I stumbled across a craft project which used starfish which had been dried and bleached by the sun. Since I don't live near the ocean, I thought I'd see what it would cost to order a few. 'Bleached Starfish' returned page after page of things I never needed to see (where's the eye bleach when you need it?). I understand the filters are better these days, but there will always be holes in the system.

'Fish knockers' seems innocent enough, but I suspect a lot of the hits would be bass wearing a D cup, or worse.

When/where I grew up, people didn't use such things. But always in your tackle box, just in case you caught a walleye, was a .22 to dispatch it quickly and cleanly.

A must have item where I grew up -- in southeast Florida. I was often on a sport fishing boat out in the Gulf Stream. We typically caught Mahi Mahi, but someone would occasionally bring in a sailfish, and they are really rowdy if they get in the boat. I don't remember being aboard a boat when a marlin or tarpon was brought in, but you better have a club if you expect to land one of those.

Phideaux, if you still want your fish knocker, you can search for "mini baseball bat", "policeman's club", "truncheon", "nightstick", or "lathi".