Fishing

With all the cable tools doing their heavy work downhole and the risks involved in running in and out of the hole, equipment could break and tools or parts could drop and become lodged in the hole.  An accident of this sort brought drilling to a halt.  The job of removing this "iron in the hole" is called fishing.  The fish is the piece that was lost.

The fishing operation is suspenseful and temper-provoking.  To say that the driller was put "out of sorts" is minimizing his attitude.  Sometimes the fish was never grabbed and the owner, tired of delay and expense, moved the rig and drilled a new hole.

A large number (probably thousands) of weird looking devices have been made to grab the fish one way or another.  The names of some of these tools will give the reader an idea of what they were supposed to accomplish and vaguely what they looked like:

The challenge of a fish turned oilmen into inventors.  Some of the devices were "brainstorms" designed to work for the particular circumstance of the moment and thus led to esoteric renditions that suited the vision of the blacksmith.  The majority didn't work, but some became standard and were listed in supply catalogs.  Among the latter are the alligator grab, collar grabs and socket, rope knives etc.  Fishing doesn't always involve lost drilling tools.  Casing, tubing, sucker rods, or anything else used in the well during drilling, completion and production, may have to be retrieved.

A final resort was the use of a whipstock which allows the bit to angle off and actually bypass the fish but leaves the operator with a deviated hole.  This was sometimes unpopular where wells were closely spaced.

The fishing procedure didn't stop with the slow down or disappearance of cable tool oil well drilling.  It has plagued all manner of drilling and still does.

A rope spear with hog knife.  Used to catch fallen rope and cut it if necessary.  From Jarecki catalog no. 50.

Bit hook.  These are 8 feet long (the size normally used in a 4 1/2 inch hole).  From Jarecki catalog no. 50.