Flipping can lead to fishing elbow

Flipping may be the most-effective way to fish piers and reach their hard-to-reach inner recesses, but its practitioners risk an injury known as “fishing elbow,” which can result in surgery.

Fishing elbow is the fisherman’s equivalent to tennis elbow. It is caused by the repetitive motion of flipping with the wrist that strains a tendon on the outside of  the elbow that connects several forearm muscles to the elbow. Once diagnosed, if steps aren’t taken to prevent further damage, surgery is a possibility.

Some fishermen use armbands or receive cortisone shots to relieve the pain. The best remedy is one most fishermen won’t even consider — stop fishing. Rest and ice in conjunction with stretching and strengthening exercise may alleviate the condition. The rest period could last weeks or months. If the pain continues, surgery may be necessary.

Fisherman Brad Staley has experienced fishing elbow firsthand. Staley, who fishes about 250 days a year, first felt the discomfort of fishing elbow in 2008 and, like many fishermen, he chose to ignore it. Staley thought he would beat the pain by learning to cast with the other hand. Then he injured that elbow.

The pain became so severe he couldn’t set the hook forcefully and started losing fish. After he received four cortisone shots in each arm to get relief, he had surgery on both elbows in Nov. 2011. One surgery revealed he hadn’t torn a tendon but had built-up scar tissue that kept the elbow inflamed.

Staley went two years before he began having pain in his left elbow again, so he had surgery once more in 2013.

Both times, Staley technically had “laterial epicondylitis debasement.”

“Basically, they go in and cut the inflamed tendon out,” Staley said. “On the second surgery, they found that I also had a torn ligament. They repaired that and did a muscle flap. They cut a piece of muscle and flap it over the injured tendon to help increase blood flow to that area to hopefully keep it from becoming inflamed in the future.”

In 2014, he had additional surgery on both elbows.

“I had the inside of my left elbow repaired in October.,” he said. “The ligament was completely torn off the bones. They repaired it, but the right elbow started feeling the same way so I had surgery on it Jan. 9.”

Staley’s fishing elbow isn’t a fluke. Several bass pros have had to have surgically repaired shoulders and elbows, including Larry Nixon, Dustin Wilks, Shaw Grigsby, Mark Davis, Fred Roumbanis, Clark Wendlandt, and Luke Clausen.