"on the hook"?

[Mehrgan]

Hi,
Could you please tell me what this idiom exactly mean?

1) They all managed to run away but the remaining few guys were caught on the hook.



Thanks a lot.

[Barb_D]

Picture yourself fishing. There are a lot of fish there. You drop your line - many fish swim away and are not caught. A few find their way on to your hook.

Does that help?

[Mehrgan]

Picture yourself fishing. There are a lot of fish there. You drop your line - many fish swim away and are not caught. A few find their way on to your hook.

Does that help?

Hi,
Thanks. Sure it does!
And is it a common idiom? I thought it must be more of a British usage.


Cheers!

[Mehrgan]

I was searching for the idiom and one meaning I found is, when somebody is on the hook they're caught responsible for something.

Would anyone please help me with this?

[Mehrgan]

Hmm...they all ran away but some of the didn't run away? How does that work? I don't believe that "caught on the hook" is correct - they were on the hook. How they got there is another question.

Charlie was the last man standing so he was on the hook for the bar bill. Charlie had to pay the bar bill.

Hi,
Thank you dear Gillnetter. So, you believe the use of "caught" is not correct?

Ta!

[Barb_D]

I agree that "on the hook" is much more likely to be used to mean responsible for something.

His partners backed out, and now he's on the hook for the entire amount.

[allenman]

Never heard "caught on the hook". The other responders have replied about "on the hook".

Now if you were talking to a fisherman about specifics of how a certain fish was caught this may be said.

Not a teacher