Worms and gut hooking dilema

[m cress]

Hopefully you guys can help me with this. I believe that I am a decent soft plastic angler. When I use them I can generally produce. However I will only utilize worms when NOTHING else is working for me. The reason- I'm a big animal lover and especially lately I have been deep hooking the hell out of my fish. I know bass are resilient fish and can take alot of abuse, but I just get a sick feeling when it happens. More times than not I end up just cutting of the hook as far down as possible with wire cutters rather than risk more damage by trying to dig it out. I know they can survive with a hook in em, but what can I do to prevent this. I try to set the hook as soon as is practical but lately I've just been getting later and later. It's to the point now where I have almost developed a phobia of setting the hook. I'll let the fish swim around with the bait and hope he spits it out so I don't have to worry about it. Any suggestions? I know the easy answer is set the hook sooner, but I just can't seem to do it as quick as I used to.