I have had the good fortune lately of catching some larger bass than I
had been used to. (Whether this is luck, or I'm getting better at
techniques, I don't know.) I haven't had a scale, but I'm guessing
these have been 15+ inches and maybe 3-3.5 pounds. I only
catch-and-release. I've only been fishing ponds/lakes from shore. I
need advice on several aspects.

1. As you are reeling in how do you decide how fast to reel in, and
whether to lift the fish out of the water with your rod? The
concentration of force on the skin/cartilage where the hook is caught
will increase substantially with a heavier fish. I want the fish to
be able to go swim away and grow even bigger. Some of the fun of
fishing is the fight, but I don't want to exhaust the fish and risk it
dying after I release it.

2. How do you grab a fish safely? I know you want to avoid touching
it's protective slime coating on its skin. If it's hooked and you have
line tension, and it's almost out of the water, it still seems iffy
whether the fish will thrash as I try to use a thumb grab on his lower
lip. I have some concern about getting myself hurt on the hook still
in its mouth that way. Also, I've gotten some cuts from their raspy
lower teeth. The bigger heavier fish have sometimes been too much for
my grasp and as they wrench themselves free I get cut. So far it's
only been a stinging irritation with a little blood from my thumb. I
wish I could say I fished and caught enough to develop a callous. A
bandaid in advance of catching seems the simple solution. What do you
do?

3. How heavy a bass is it safe (for the fish) to hold up by only its
lower jaw? When is it less injurious to the fish to use two hands:
one on the lip and one as a shelf under its belly?

4. I've caught fish that bent my medium-rod past a gentle C and almost
to a U, so I've grabbed the line with my hands to pull the fish up the
rest of the last few feet and out of the water and let the rod
straighten out. How do you know when the bend is too much for the rod?

5. I can't always get way down to the water to release a fish slowly,
and within just seconds after the catch. If my choices are to toss
the fish the higher shore/dock from 3-5 feet into the water, or walk
2+ minutes or so to reach a lower shore area to get to the water,
which stresses the fish least? Out of water, struggling to breath all
the while is bad, but the impact of water at some point would be
worse. Right?

6. When the fish thrashes off the hook, or snaps the line, and it's on
the ground struggling to get to the water, what do you do? Of course
banging its body on the ground is harmful. Of course grabbing the
fish with a towel further disturbs its slime coat. I've tried to grab
with my hands, and been cut on the top fins/spines much worse than by
the fish's teeth. What do you advise?

Thanks,
Richard Berke
Columbia, MD