WOODRUFF — When doctors and nurses in North Woods hospitals hear the phrase "get hooked on fishing," some picture hapless anglers seeking emergency care after taking the idea too literally.

Nowhere is that more true than the emergency room at Woodruff's Howard Young Medical Center, where ER doctors remove more than 130 hooks annually.

Located in the heart of Wisconsin's largest concentration of inland lakes, this hospital probably treats more fish-hooked people than any other hospital in the state.

Countless lures that once impaled people hang inside a "People Catchers" display case in the ERs at Howard Young and its sister facility, Memorial Hospital, in Eagle River.

In fact, even though the displays are crammed with colorful plugs, spoons, spinners, jig-hooks, crankbaits and jerkbaits, these are but a few of the lures extracted from hands, feet, ears, heads, arms, legs and — yes, butts — of anguished anglers in recent years.

After unhooking 129 patients in 2007, 137 in 2006 and 136 in 2005, Howard Young alone could fill its 6-square-foot display case every year with a fresh catch of lures.

The curator of the collections is Dr. Roderick Brodhead, medical director of emergency services at Howard Young and Eagle River. Before arriving in 1998, the Wausau native spent 15 years in emergency medicine in Chicago often working with victims of inner-city "knife and gun clubs."

Brodhead moved to the North Woods soon after starting his family, and much prefers removing hooks to bullets. Although fishhook injuries can be terrible, with rare cases resulting in eye loss,

Brodhead said most are minor and require 5 to 10 minutes of treatment.

Fishhook procedures, however, require some tools seldom seen in operating rooms. When extending a latex-gloved hand while working, Brodhead requests a vise grips or bolt-cutter as often as a scalpel or clamp.

Therefore, Ace is the place when his ER doctors need the right tool.

"We go to Ace Hardware each year for new equipment," Brodhead said. "We disinfect everything before we use it. We need something very, very strong to cut off a muskie hook. Medical instruments aren't designed for that."

Brodhead said hands are the most common body part to get hooked, but the head stops its share, too. In fact, Brodhead has removed hooks from every bodily region, except one.

"Fortunately, I've never seen anyone hooked in the genital area," he said.

Whew. OK, everyone. Unclamp your legs and resume breathing.

Despite educational efforts advising people to use needle-nose pliers to unhook fish, most victims get impaled while using their fingers.

Again, though, Brodhead has seen it all. Patients regularly grab, step on or sit on hooks. Many others get hooked when partners cast carelessly.

Brodhead estimates that children make up about 10 to 15 percent of the victims. And even though Vilas and Oneida counties draw many muskie anglers, this group generates only 10 percent of hooking victims.

"Most people we see are general recreational fishermen," Brodhead said.

Muskie anglers, however, might be the most easily humbled.

"Most people are very good-natured and stay light-hearted about it," Brodhead said. "But some experienced guys are very humiliated. They tell us over and over how they've been fishing for years, and they've never had this happen before. They just have to tell us how it happened."

No matter their perceived standing among anglers, all of Brodhead's fishhook patients receive a "People Catchers Club" card, which IDs them by the year's victim number. In return, they're asked to donate their lure to the hospital's display case.

One man who initially declined soon had regrets. After doctors liberated the hook from his hand, he said he couldn't part with the lucky lure and then headed for his truck. He soon returned, pointed to his posterior and requested they remove the lure from its new location.

He had absent-mindedly tossed the lure onto the front seat and climbed aboard. After being released a second time, the man's love for the lure vanished.

"Keep it," he said, limping off.

Brodhead didn't handle that case himself, so he couldn't say if this was a noteworthy example of catch-and-release or just throwing back an undersized catch.