Fishing Tools in Drilling: Answer the Same Questions Once, in Public, Under Your Name

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By Amanda Leon, founder of OilMoney.io. Houston-raised, came up in the Houston marketing team of Vallourec, and has run Unrth, a brand and growth studio for oil and gas and industrial companies, since 2017, with her boots on client locations in Midland and Odessa. Last reviewed October 20, 2026.

When I walked into Vallourec, the French maker of VAM premium connections, I came from a world where I had only studied neuroscience and international relations, and I didn't know much of anything. In its Houston marketing team, pulling apart international drilling marketing data, I learned about fracking and drilling and the different heads on drill bits. Vallourec was humbling. It reminded me I'm always going to be a student of life, and that it's more important to listen and learn than to speak.

There's usually somebody on a fishing job who is where I was: a junior engineer or a new hand who has never run the tool and needs it explained before he signs. Remember what that feels like, be patient with him, and answer him once, in public, under your own name.

In drilling, a fish is what OSHA's oil and gas glossary calls "an object that is left in the wellbore during drilling or workover operations," anything from scrap metal to part of the drill stem. A fishing tool is a tool designed to recover equipment lost in a well. Below are seven of them, in words you can hand that young engineer.

The Questions That Repeat on Fishing Jobs

Something is stuck or dropped, the rig is waiting, and the questions barely change from job to job:

  • What is down there, and how do we find out before we pick a tool?
  • Do we catch it from the outside or the inside?
  • How fast can you get it to location?
  • What does it cost per day?
  • What happens if your tool gets stuck too?
  • Whose PO and AFE does this go on, and who signs the ticket?

A few of those answers only you have, like how fast a tool gets from your yard to his location, or what your company charges. Others, like what a spear does, are public knowledge you still explain one person at a time, by text from the truck, sometimes after midnight. Put those in public once, and the late call can go straight to the part only you know. That is the idea behind our page for rental tool and fishing reps who want to stay the first call.

Seven Fishing Tools, Defined From Public Glossaries

Each one comes with a short version you can say out loud. The impression block goes first, because its job is to help choose the tool.

Impression Block

OSHA's glossary describes a block with lead, or another relatively soft material, on its bottom. It is run in on drill pipe or tubing and set down on the lost object. The soft face takes a mirror image of the top of the fish, which shows the fish's position in the hole and helps pick the correct fishing tool.

The short version: before you choose a tool, take a print of what you are trying to catch.

Overshot

SLB's Energy Glossary defines an overshot as a downhole fishing tool that catches a tube or tool on its outside surface. A grapple or similar slip mechanism grips the fish so tension and jarring can be applied. A release system lets the overshot disengage if the fish cannot be removed.

The short version: the overshot goes over the fish and grabs it from the outside. When a customer asks what happens if the fish will not come free, the release system is your answer.

Spear

OSHA's glossary defines a spear as a fishing tool for retrieving pipe lost in a well. It goes down the hole and into the pipe being fished.

The short version: the overshot catches pipe from the outside, and the spear catches it from the inside.

Washover Pipe

SLB defines washover pipe, in fishing operations, as a large-diameter pipe with a grappling device inside and tungsten carbide cutting surfaces on the bottom. It is lowered over a stuck fish to latch on and pull it out. SLB also notes the catch: because washover pipe is wide and thin-walled, it can get stuck itself, so it is usually treated as a last resort.

The short version: it goes down over the fish, latches on, and pulls. If you rent washover pipe, be ready to explain that risk, and what your company charges if the pipe stays down there.

Mill

SLB's Energy Glossary defines a mill as a tool that grinds metal downhole. It is used to clear metal debris, which the glossary calls junk, so drilling can continue, or to grind away all or part of a casing string, for example to cut a window and redirect the well. SLB notes that nearly all mills use tungsten carbide cutting surfaces.

The short version: a mill grinds junk or casing out of the way so the job can keep going.

Junk Basket

SLB defines a junk basket, also called a junk sub or basket sub, as a tool run into the well to pick up junk from the bottom of the hole. The same glossary lists a second meaning: a steel box on the rig used to store small spare parts.

The short version: it brings junk up off bottom. And if a hand asks you for the junk basket, make sure you both mean the same one.

Fishing Magnet

OSHA's glossary defines a fishing magnet as a powerful magnet designed to recover metallic objects lost in a well.

The short version is already short: a strong magnet that brings lost metal back up.

Each of these is an answer worth putting in public once: the credited definition, then what only you know from running it. Leave out photos and location details unless the operator has cleared them. For a pattern, see how to explain a complex oilfield service so the buyer gets it the first time.

Who Is on Location When Pipe Sticks: Company Man, Toolpusher, and Drilling Engineer

Three titles come up when something is lost in the hole, and they don't all work for the same company.

The company man is the operator's representative on location, and on land he answers for operational issues there, safety and efficiency included. More on him in selling to the oilfield company man.

The toolpusher is the drilling contractor's supervisor on location, a separate role in SLB's glossary. Be useful to him, but don't assume he's renting your tool: Drilling Tools International, a public rental company, says in its Form 10-K for 2025 that drilling contractors rarely rent tools on an operator's behalf.

The drilling engineer is a good reader to write for. EOG's Midland posting for a senior drilling engineer, from October 2025, lists writing AFEs and evaluating vendor performance, so the engineer in a job like that may have written the AFE your ticket bills to. We break that role down in what a drilling engineer does.

The founder we work with, a fourth-generation oilfield man with a service company in the Permian, posts about the work he knows, and the most common job title among his followers is drilling engineer. A plain answer on washover pipe, under your name, is written for that same reader. Read the full story.

How a Public Rental Company Bills: Day Rates and Lost-in-Hole Charges

Drilling Tools International files with the SEC, so its billing model is public. Its 10-K for 2025 says its tools rent mainly on daily fees, with charges for lost or damaged tools. About 48 percent of its 2025 revenue came from oilfield service companies such as Baker Hughes, Halliburton, and SLB, and about 48 percent from operators such as Chevron, EOG, and Occidental. Its fleet is concentrated in the Permian.

Two customer questions fall right out of that: what the tool costs per day, and what happens if it stays down there. On a fishing job, put the second one next to SLB's warning that washover pipe can get stuck itself. And with the split that close between service companies and operators, learn early which one is paying on each job.

You don't have to publish your price sheet to answer those. Explain how your company bills: when the day rate starts and stops, and how a lost or damaged tool is handled. Write it once and stop retyping it by text. For the basin picture, see rental tools and fishing sales in the Permian Basin.

Why Field Tickets Get Kicked Back

A field ticketing software company published a list on July 17, 2026 of common reasons operators reject oilfield service field tickets. Three of them are worth settling before a rental tool leaves the yard:

  • The wrong signer, or an approver without authority at that dollar level.
  • Work outside the PO or contract scope.
  • Charges billed to the wrong PO or AFE.

The same list notes that many customers require a second signature above a set threshold. So before the tool rolls, settle the PO, the AFE, who signs at that dollar level, and whether a second signature is needed. Nobody wants to talk paperwork in the middle of the night, which is why it belongs in a short public checklist your customers can read before they call.

That checklist, the seven definitions, and the way your company bills are what you'd bring to the quarterly story dump in The Warm Walk-In™. You talk it through from the truck, we write the posts in your voice, and nothing goes out until you approve it.

Don't Skip the Trailer Stop

A stop at the company man's trailer answers his question about this well better than any post can. Don't skip it.

Posts carry the answers that repeat, like overshot or spear and how a lost tool gets billed, to the people you haven't met yet. So when a new buyer asks you to just send some information, you have something worth sending. If finding new buyers is the bigger problem, start with how to get new customers for oilfield rental tools and fishing jobs.

Get Your Bison Walk-Around

If your best fishing tool answers live in your text history, start here.

Send us your LinkedIn. We'll send back the Bison Walk-Around: five minutes of plain English on what's costing you callbacks and what we'd build. No call. No invoice. We give first.

Get your Bison Walk-Around

Sources and As-Of Dates

The Warm Walk-In™ is an original method created by Amanda Leon and owned by The Valours Creative Innovation LLC.

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