ST when I lost my large northern it was because the lip gripper failed.  I had never used the gripper until I had the large northern on.  My son had never used it at all either so in fairness to him that may have been the reason it didn't work.  My son had the northern by the lower lip.  When he went to pick the fish up it did not clear the side of the canoe by about 8 inches.  My son is 6' 3" and he was kneeling in the canoe.  He held the fish for a second or two and then it started to thrash and fell off.  If he had pulled the fish to the center of the canoe it would had fallen in the canoe which might of been a bad scene.  The northern was still hooked and I brought it back to the canoe, but we were unable to land it.  I think the first gripper by Berkley had a bad design.  I have purchased a second gripper and have had better luck with it.  One problem with the gripper is that it can cut a hole in the skin of the lower jaw. 
I have used the method described by Jammar and it works well in some situations.  If you are fishing with a Rapala and you try Jammar's method, your hand and the Rapala can be very close together.  The other drawback to Jammar's method is if you have to use a jaw spreader.

If you use my method correctly you do not touch the gills.  In fact you do not want to touch the gills because they are very sharp and will cut your hand up.  This may be stating the obvious, but everyone should have a jaw spreader and needle nose pliers in their tackle box.  If you don't use these you are over stressing your fish.  If you use my method correctly the fish never touches the canoe and is only touch by your hand which by the way is wet.  Dry hands are bad for fish.
The worse thing you can do is put the fish on the bottom of your canoe and then remove the lure.  Nothing good happens to a fish while it is on the bottom on your canoe.

One other thing to add.  If the lure is deep in the fish, consider cutting the line and pulling the lure through the back of the gills.  Actually cutting the line is generally a good idea and can make getting the fish off a lot easier in some situations.  Sure you have to retie, but after catching a good size northern cutting off 6 feet of line is a good idea anyways.

My method does not work as well with walleyes because of where the dorsal fin is located.  With walleyes I just grab the walleye and squeeze.  With walleyes you have to have a backward motion before you grab the fish to push the dorsal fin down.  Walleyes are much easier to grab  than northerns and trout.  On very big walleyes Jammar's method works well.
With bass grabbing the lower jaw works best.

Westwood, if a person is solo and has to do the landing himself the best way then is to grab over the neck and under the gill plate, lower the rod, grab the jaw spreader and lock open the jaw, then use a long nose pliers to remove the lure. 

You should do this in the water next to the boat.  After the spreader is removed you can then hoist it for a measurement (although that's tough to do one handed).

I've heard of people notching their paddles or gunnels to measure fish with.  I'm just curious because I'm often solo and want to do everthing possible for the fish to survive. Years ago while solo I had a 40 inch fish go belly up after releasing and it was not a good feeling.

i use the bare hand behind the gill plates method to secure the fish, then under the jaw to lift/hold/pictures.  the gill rakers are pretty terrible on those big fish so the backs of your fingers usually get maimed bare handed, but thats life. our biggest pike have come out of the pickeral narrows while trolling past the point before the entrance to the maria portage. theres a big cabbage weedbed there in 10-15 ft of water. otherwise we pick up nice pike will jigging for walleyes on mid lake structure.

i think im going to target pike a bit more this next trip. i have a pretty large arsenal of muskie baits (i live in wisconsin) so ill bring a few along with my muskie rod. some depth raiders trolled around some of the big islands on oriana might pick up a few lake trout also!

Westwood, thanks for the reply.  I have a cloth yard long measuring tape that I could  secure to the cross brace.  This would be quicker/better than laying the fish in the bottom of the boat and extending a tape measure on it.

And yes, killing fish unintentionally is not good for the psyche.

Westwood wrote on Feb 11^th, 2014 at 6:03pm:


You are exactly right, that happened to me with about 16-17 lb fish and ended up with a Rapala attaching us together, barbs and all. I was mostly due to the fact that I tried to scoop it up while it was still too hot. Never want to do that again! I am much more cautious now even a little afraid when a big one is hooked. I use your method of pinching over the back behind the gills on the smaller fish but I don't have meat hook sized hands, I a smaller fellow. Its tough for me to even spread my grip across the back on those extra large pike and get a firm enough grip. Yes the method I suggest requires an abundance of caution with a huge helping of patience. Unless you are Hulk Hogan, a 25+ lb Northern thrashing in your grip at the end of your arm is battle you are not gonna win.

As far as measuring goes I use a cloth tape from my wife's sewing kit (shhh!). A 48" steel yard stick is too difficult to mount and seems too awkward for me with huge fish.