Releasing fish?

[RiverRat77]

I think as long as you handle a trout gently, then you will at least see it swim away..... I don't know that I've ever seen a stream trout flip over and not swim off when I release them. They always seem to be right hearty and take off swimming strong when I let them go. Also, a reason you might not want to lip trout with your hand is that the browns anyway and some of the bigger rainbows and cutts have some nasty little scalpels in their mouth. Those teeth are sharp where a bass just has a sandpaper feeling pad on the top and bottom of their mouth. I think too that with the big bass, lipping them and holding them horizontally will put the whole weight of the fish square on that bottom lip structure where holding them by the lip vertically puts more pressure on the thumb of the person. I don't know, I could be way off but I've heard before to not hold big bass in a horizontal position and if you do, make sure you are supporting them with yoru other hand. I don't fish for them that often but when I fished for smallies exclusively one summer, I never used to hold them any way but vertically and I held some big ones by the lip..... I figure if the bass pros can do it and have a high release rate and low mortality rate, then it should be an ok technique. I've made the lip mistake on trout and I'm happy to say that won't be happening again.
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