Removing/Avoiding Deep Hook Ups

I fish my neighbor’s pond. It has a lot of sunny’s and bass. Lately
the bass (in the 10 to 14 inch range) have been hitting the poppers
so hard the hook gets pretty far down their throats. I tried removing
them but great difficulty. I don’t want to keep the fish. The
poppers are pretty large with a size 6 hook. I smashed the barb but
that still hasn’t done the trick. I was thinking of removing the hook
point all together figuring that would allow me to back out almost all
hook ups. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.