Needle-nose pliers
Also called fishing pliers, long nose pliers
Long tapered jaws that reach into a fish's mouth to back a hook out while keeping your fingers clear of the points.
The taper is what makes them fishing pliers rather than hardware pliers. Long thin jaws get past teeth and gill plates to grip the hook bend, and they give you the leverage to rotate a hook back the way it went in.
Fishing versions add things a hardware pair does not have: a cutter hard enough for braid, a split-ring tooth on the nose, sometimes a crimping slot, and a corrosion-resistant coating because they live wet.
They also do the jobs nobody lists on the packaging: crimping barbs flat, pinching split shot, bending a crankbait line tie back into tune, and pulling a hook out of a thumb.
Length is the main choice. Six to seven inches is the everyday size for bass and panfish. Longer jaws around eight or nine inches keep your hand further from pike and musky teeth, at the cost of being clumsy for small work.
Put them on a lanyard or in a sheath. Pliers left on a rock or a boat deck are the single most commonly lost piece of fishing gear.
Related terms
Where this comes up
The guides that use needle-nose pliers and show it on real gear.
Needle-nose pliers is one of 206 terms in the glossary.
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