or dumb and dumber?

Not sure if was it here or on another board, but someone brought up "dumbest
things you ever did fishing".

Of course, I have a long list of dumb things that I've done fishing. and that's
no surprise to anyone.

But I beat my dumbest act by far.

Saturday night I met up with a friend for a sal****er surf excursion to one of
the jetties in Southern New Jersey. Given that it was going to be high tide, he
suggested that I bring a sinking line. Now mind you, up to this point I've only
fished with sink tips in freshwater, or with intermediates in the salt.

Ok, I already had an airflow intermediate head and running line setup, so I
just purchased the Airflow type 7 full sink head. 35' of 7ips or so (I have no
idea what weight this was, but much heavier than what I've cast so far).

Did some quick lawn practice after setting it up in the afternoon. Thought I
knew what I was doing with this.

9PM met up with my friend Dave down at the jetty, and conditions were far from
ideal. A southern wind, big chop in the surf, the jetties (2 right there) both
soaking in suds.

So went over to the beach, of course now with the wind coming from my casting
side. By now you, the reader, know what's coming, but at this point, I didn't.
I was casting over my left (I'm right handed) shoulder since I don't have a
backcast down yet. However, I wasn't satisfied with my distance, such that I
could make out from how little was being stripped out. It was pretty dark now,
and I didn't notice the significant tailing loops in my line as I cast foward.
I was false casting and let my arm drift over my head when WHAM. Caught my
black deceiver with the 1/0 stainless hook right in my upper lip. Of course
Dave suggested that I'd have to push the point out, cut it off and back it out.
He was only thinking about saving the fly However, being only a few miles
from my inlaws home and also the hospital, I didn't try to tough it out on the
beach. Of course, I never got back out there, but there was so much seaweed in
the water anyway that it didn't seem like too much of a loss.

Surprisingly, it didn't really hurt much while just hanging there.
But I was hooked solid and no amount of trying the
push-down-and-back-out-with-a-piece-of-mono-over-the-bend was getting this
thing out. And I knew right there that I was going to feel the verbal barbs a
LOT more than anything the doctor was going to inflict (although the needle to
numb the lip was a b*tch). With most of the feathers clipped off, my wife and 2
security guards at the hospital said I had kind of a hitler mustache look.
Great, thanks. 5 hours, much explaining and embarrassment later, the eye,
thread and remaining feathers cut off, point pushed through and extracted, 1
stitch later, I was home thinking about how to avoid such things in the future.
My wife said she wants to mount the remnants of this fly and put it up in our
family room. Since we've been back home to normal weekly business this idea has
not resurfaced.
Fishing in the daytime only is not an option for striper fishing by foot,
except during the fall run. Nighttime is striper time.

So, here's what I've come up with so far:

(1) barbless hooks for the inevitable
(2) daytime practice with that head. I understand I have to develop a different
cast for full sinking heads.
(3) learn to backcast so I can switch sides to compensate for bad cross wind
(4) shorten up my leaders. I had way too long a leader on for nighttime
fishing.
(5) full goalie face mask?

-- Rob