Properly Lipping a Bass

[InEccess]

I just wanted to ask the forum how do you go about lipping your bass? Where exactly do you place your thumb inside the fishes mouth. I ask because I may be asked to do the tournament director job at the first tournament of 2008. I know just lipping my own fish sometimes gives me bloody thumbs, so I must be doing something wrong. I can't imagine what they'd look like after the entire club has weighed in.

(We use a rubbermade box on a calibrated digital scale. We do not have a holding tank to place the fish until release, so the anglers keep their bags full of water. Each fish must be individually lipped, measured, and placed in the rubbermade bin for weighing in. The fish are then lipped again, and placed back in the anglers tournament bag.)

[ROBZILLA]

Let's Hold and Release Bass RIGHT!
Last year, David Campbell, of TP&WD's Tyler Hatchery, announced anglers were breaking the jaws of lunker bass brought to him under the Lone Star Lunker Program. Since then, Honey Hole, In-Fisherman, and many other fishing magazines have reported his comments. By now, most bassers who occasionally read fishing magazines have heard about jaw damage. But this doesn't mean they understand it.

We, and I mean just about everybody who ever unhooked a bass or held one in one hand for a photograph, have been torquing the jaws of bass. A jaw, whether human or fish, is only meant to open so wide and no more. Forcing it wider does damage.

A few weeks ago I watched a popular television fisherman mention this jaw damage and claim it only applies to lunkers. He said lip-landing was the best way to land and handle bass up to six pounds. If this expert thinks carelessly lip-holding small bass is harmless, it's likely many other bassers think so too.

The TV angler was partially right. Lip-landing does the least damage to small bass, and is often harmless IF their jaws aren't distorted. Only the jaws of mishandled super-lunkers are likely to actually break and cause a bass to starve. But he was wrong if he thinks anglers should continue to hold smaller bass as we have in the past.

By using jaws as levers to rotate hanging bass away from vertical to a "more natural" horizontal position with one hand; TV anglers, outdoor writers, and average fishermen have unnecessarily strained jaw tissues. Tissue damage occurs long before bones break. It may take 13 or more pounds to break a bass jaw completely, but strain occurs anytime the jaw is distorted beyond the full-open position naturally used by bass. We don't need to carelessly give every released bass a "jaw ache."

My files and likely those of most TV fishermen, advertisers, and other outdoor writers contain many pictures that show improper handling techniques. As we all have a moral responsibility to display good handling, these old videos, slides, and prints are obsolete and should not be used, except to illustrate bad procedure. Anglers should no longer see distorted jaws and other bad examples.

We can do better. From now on, all published bass videos and photographs should show lip landings in which bass stay vertical, hanging from jaws that aren't forced wide open. If a bass is rotated any amount toward the horizontal, the lucky angler's other hand must support the weight of the body, not the bass' jaw.

It will take time and effort to learn better lipping and holding procedures. Anglers need to experiment with alternate grips. One technique that seems to help is to keep fingers straight while lip-landing and lip-holding bass. This grip doesn't feel as firm and secure as the old method and is awkward at first. But straight fingers don't push in under the jaw and force it open as much as the harmful grip with fingers rolled in toward the thumb.

Another option is to grip the bass' jaw from the side without a lure and hooks rather than from the front. This grip is also less apt to force a jaw too wide open.

At least one bass angler I've seen in a video didn't land bass by the lip at all. Instead, he put his hand under tired bass and lifted them straight up. They seemed docile and didn't flip away. However, he still had the problem of how to hold the fish while unhooking it. For unhooking, it's hard to beat a lip lock that doesn't force the jaw open too far.

Proper release techniques also don't include swishing a bass back and forth to "re-oxygenate" its gills. Gill filaments are attached at only one end and are meant to stream like a flag in a flow from only one direction. Backward current can bend, bruise, or break fragile gill filaments. In addition, too much forward movement can force excess water into the fish's stomach. Although fresh bass naturally jump and splash, fish that are tired and stressed from battle don't need more stress. Place them in the water rather than dropping or throwing them back. If a fish is healthy enough to swim slowly away, just let it go gently.

Let's hold and release bass right from now on.

[ROBZILLA]

The key to reducing stress on fish is to handle them as little as possible. This means landing the fish carefully and releasing it in a gentle manner.

Land the fish by hand or with a rubber or soft nylon mesh landing net (stiff nylon mesh net crapes off much of a fish's protective slime coating and can even remove scales).

When handling bass, grasp by the lower jaw and hold the fish vertically. Larger bass should be held with one hand on the jaw and the other hand supporting the weight under the belly. Do not hold a bass by the lower jaw horizontally with only one hand.

Remove hooks as quickly as possible. Needle nosed pliers make this much easier on you and the fish.

Run aerators frequently when fish are held in live wells (oxygen is even better than aeration). When water temperatures are over 70oF, run aerators continuously. Do not crowd fish in live wells as this contributes to stress. If fish are caught in lakes with a slot limit, consider keeping fish shorter than the slot limit on ice in a cooler. By harvesting fish shorter than the slot limit, fishing will improve.

Add one half cup of un-iodized salt (rock salt or ice cream salt) per 5 gallons of water to correct for electrolyte imbalance. When water temperatures are over 80oF, add enough ice to lower the temperature approximately 10oF.

Commercial live bait conditioners are available, but some conditioners contain chemical ingredients that are not FDA and EPA approved. Therefore, they are not recommended by the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.

Change live well water every 2 to 3 hours, or whenever fish begin showing signs of stress, such as excessive darting and banging into the live well sides or swimming nose up to the surface.

If fish cannot regain sufficient equilibrium to swim properly for more that a few seconds, or if there is red discoloration in the fins or body, enjoy the fish for dinner. Once fish reach a certain stress level, they very seldom recover.

If the fish are to be utilized for food, proper procedures should be followed to retard spoilage.

[3dkicker]

Ever see a bass open and close it's mouth, flare, before it swims away after being released???? Might be that they're adjusting their jaw back to where it should be....think about it.

[InEccess]

I guess the best way to simplify my question is... Where in the fishes mouth is the best place to grip without getting my thumbs chewed up? Or, is the answer I need to fish more to create callus?

[3dkicker]

Sounds like you got yourself a case of B.T.

Wear a glove during the weigh in to prevent it.

If you get it during a tournament due to catching numbers of big fish then take a photo and enjoy it.

[wargoth]

Ugh, I've always hated seing bass held horizontally by the jaw, it just looks damn painful. I alway let them hang if I am lipping the poor little darlings.

[basskickerz_cuz]

Usually when I land a fish, I grip it under the belly and in the lip. Not tightly, and also I try to touch the fish as little as possible over the body to prevent the protective coating they have to preserve homeostasis from coming off. This is for a picture of course.

[keithdog]

I would suggest that if you are landing a bass that you intend to release back into the lake, simply set your rod down and take hold of the lower jaw to control the fish. Don't take the fish from the water, but rather unhook the bass while still in the water, not lifting him into the air at all. If you do wish to weight your catch or have a friend take a photo of you with the catch, hold the jaw with one hand and support his weight by placing the other hand under the belly before lifting the fish. That way there is very little stress on the jaw area. Then carefully and gently place the fish back into the water. I will support the bass as he gets his witts back and swims away on his own.