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Old 08-15-2017, 12:49 PM
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RavYak RavYak is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: West Edmonton
Posts: 5,174
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There are 2 main issues with lip gripping tools.

1) Fish are not made to hang vertically from a single lip.

This means that if you use a lip gripping tool you need to make sure you are only doing so in order to control the head and your other hand needs to be doing most of the lifting and controlling the body. If at any point you let go of the body of the fish and hang it from the lip gripper while it is thrashing etc you will probably do worse damage to the fish then if you had dropped it.

2) When a fish rotates most grippers do damage.

Pike are the main species people like to use these grips on here but unfortunately they have very fragile jaws and a tendency to try and twist/roll making lip grippers a poor choice for handling them. Boga grips or other grips that rotate freely are the best choice but are not without issue either. Boga grips for example have a very small contact area that often cause punctures/tears.

Learning how to safely and properly handle fish including pike is a much better solution that everyone should do and fish grips should only be used in the odd situations where they are needed. Children are a tricky situation because when they are really young they can't hold a pike properly(which imo is via the gill plate with one hand and body with the other hand) but yet they won't use a grip properly either if the fish starts to flop. In order to make it easier to get a photo etc I can see using them but you should try to minimize these situations and soon as they are old enough put the grips away and teach them how to properly hold them.

Walleye are much better suited to grips as they have thicker stronger mouth/jaw structures. They also behave far better then pike during handling as well so it is a lot less likely of doing damage to them with a grip. Because they behave so well it is usually unnecessary to use grips though since they will usually just sit nicely in your hand if you support their belly.
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