One thing that's seems to get often overlooked in fish handling / hook removal is time out of the water. Quite simply, a fish out of water cannot breath. A lot of "belly up" fish have passed out from lack of oxygen.
Do the fish a favour and leave it in the water while you gather up all the necessary tools. Then if takes longer than 30 seconds to get the hook out, give the fish a 30 second drink to allow to get its "wind back".
Try holding your breath while you work on the fish, if you need a breath, it's a pretty good possibility the fish might too!!!
That's a good idea bud. Hold your breath. I like it. I generally try to unhook while they are in the water and always give them a chance to recover if things are taking too long. Hold the leader by the top swivel and get to work. Often times the fish will thrash causing some slack and the hook comes out or loosens all by itself.
I find with walleye, they shrink when you're filleting them. A 43cm legal fish becomes on 42cm illegal fish on the table. I always keep minimum 2cm above the required length.
Go barbless, if you see the fish is too small give it slack and they often get off on their own. Spreaders and long hook extractors work well. I've only hooked 2 bad enough to tear something in the last 2 years. Last one was a crazy tiny trout that bit a treble that barely fit in its mouth and hooked on all 3 sides. Sometimes you just have to toss em back and hope they feed something in the ecosystem.
Personally I always keep a set set of long nose pliers in my tackle box,they're great for deeply hooked fish. Another method I use for fish that are gill hooked is to remove the hook through the gill plate and not the mouth. It's a little bit tricky, your not tearing out the gills. Bacially all your doing is pulling down on the hook and taking it out through the gill plate. Stay away from those jaw spreaders, they are midevil and do more damage then good. Always go barbless, use more jigs than spoons. Set your hook earlier than later. This works good for all species.
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