This will be a bit graphic and make you definitely blink a time or two: Limp Cobra on Eye Protection. Flatten the barb on a hook, be it a fly, spinner, bait, jig. Always wear eye protection while fishing, even in the Winter if you can. Have pliers/forceps handy. If the most terrible happens in yours or someone else’s eye have a plan and stay calm and practice psychological first aid. Think of shock. Panic. 

FT_fly-in_the_eye
Image via Field & Stream 2011

I have remarked about this before. Where ever you are in the wilds; what is the plan for an emergency response. If nothing more momentarily think: I have the emergency numbers…I know where I am…I have phone service or no phone service…do I have an idea where/when I will have service and stage there for a response…how far is the nearest hospital in a town or area you may not be overly familiar with on an outing??? Just a few questions to run through the mind before and after you traipse off care free to the water’s edge.

Even at a minimum those flattened barbs or barbless hooks will back out of fabrics/materials so much easier…whether yours or the person standing too close to you.