That will happen at times even if you do cut off that part of the crawler that hangs way too far beyond the hook. We lose fish like that on every trip and sometime it happens even on a lure. Sometimes eyes just don’t comment and take the whole thing, different from the wipers, they usually get hooked every time because they are more aggressive, IMO. Those smaller wipers are likely the ones that were planted last year after the DWR heard complaints about there not being as many wipers in there. Wipers are so bony that you don’t get much meat off a 12 incher, IMO they need to be 15 to 18 inches before you get much meat off them.
You’re right on the small wipers, and I personally don’t keep one over 18" either…let 'em go, and maybe someone else will catch it and also release it…if you ever watch Upper Midwest walleye tournaments, you’ll often see, while trolling, that they are holding the rod, and when they feel that light tic of a bite, they kind of swoop their rod back, giving the walleye a better chance to ‘take it’, for a better hookup…I just wouldn’t want to be doing that when a big cat or big wiper hit…
For a number of years after I retired, I fished with a tournament walleye angler, his username was mike4cobra, he taught me a lot a things, like feeding the rod tip back, when you get that first tic tic bite, then keeping the rod tip low and setting the hook, it really increased the hookup rate but that was when we were bottom bouncing, not sure how much it helps when trolling faster at 2 mph or faster.