I do eat some fish but I like to release most of them. This problem doesn't happen as much with crappie as it does bass and bluegill. It's primarily a problem with soft plastics; I usually fish them texas rigged weedless. For bass, it most often happens to me when maybe the wind is such that I didn't feel the bite and then I realize a fish is running with my bait. If a bass has a Super Fluke, for instance, for more than a second or two, he's apt to swallow it. I pressed down the barb on my hook for my flukes and that does help and it doesn't seem like I lose many fish due to pressing the barb. Bluegill will sometimes swallow a bait. I have some long nose needle nose pliers I use to get hooks out. Anyone found any product or technique that helps? As for technique, I became more diligent about setting the hook quickly. Usually, it seems that if a fish hits a soft plastic, he's got it, might as well set the hook. Or if it's an exposed hook, it seems you really don't need a hookset.
I am also curious what you do if you have a gut hooked fish when you just can't get the bait out. I assume that fish will die. On days like that, I just end up keeping a few so I don't 'waste' a fish due to bait swallowing. What do you do? Now that I think about it, what do people do on mandatory catch-and-release waters?
Seems I have seen a video long time ago about how to get a hook out of a fish's gut without killing it. Need to find that!
