Fish got away while in lip clamp...

[Basshole69]

So I've been fishing for a while now and just recently started getting into some lunkers. Today I made a mistake I feel horrible about. I was going to weigh my fish, and had it clamped in the lower lip and held it in the water while I looked for my scale in my very disorganized bag. While I was looking the fish thrashed violently and shook loose of my grasp. I caught him in some thick lilipads so he struggled to get away immediately but he was also near impossible to grab with bare hands. He eventually jumped out of the pads and I'm assuming swam away, it was past sunset so I could hardly see. Will it eventually be able to break free of the clamp? It's a plastic rapala clamp, pretty lightweight. 

[jr231]

Most grippers are pretty solid. Honestly it will kill the fish if its unable to shake it .. and I imagine it would wear the bass out rather quickly. Even if it is lightweight. But maybe it shook free. And lives another day. Crazier things have happened. You learned your lesson. 

[Dwight Hottle]

Don't feel bad I had a similar experience when I was holding a 5lb smallie over the side attaced to my Boga grip scale. A hardy shake loosened my grip and the bass swam a away with my $110 Boga. That hurt me worse than the missing bass. It is possible the bass rubbed a hole in his jaw on the bottom to lose the gripper /scale.

[MIbassyaker]

If its the plastic fish grips, I bet it will get free. I have found If you clamp them closed for an extended period of time, the plastic deforms slightly to where it doesn't hold itself closed. Then after leaving them open for a while, it goes back to normal. After a couple close calls, I started keeping my grips leashed.

EDIT: Ah, nevermind -- you said it was the rapala grips. They may not have this quirk.

[beardown34]

i am here to tell you there is hope. how much? who knows, but there is hope.

i did the exact same thing with a lip gripper jr. i had just bought it and never used it before. i had no idea what the purpose of the wrist strap was. as i bent over to release the fish from the bank, the bass shook its head and off it went into the pond ( see at 05:55 in the video below):

 

   

i went home and tripped balls about it. for the next 3 days, i walked the edges of the pond, expecting to find a dead bass with my gripper attached to its mouth. wouldn't you know, 4 days later i found the fish gripper, with the grip still closed, and no bass in sight. i have no earthly explanation for how this came to be. i can't see how the bass could possibly have generated enough leverage to spit the gripper. if another angler had caught that bass (i doubt it, it's a small residential pond and i barely see anyone fishing there), i don't think they would have just tossed the lip gripper back into the pond. 

so you will never know, but at least rest a little easier knowing it is possible for the fish to escape.

the kicker for my story? a few days later, one of my toddlers was playing with that lip gripper and lost it somewhere and i've never found it since. aint that a b*#!?

[Mainebass1984]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 10:46 PM, Basshole69 said:

So I've been fishing for a while now and just recently started getting into some lunkers. Today I made a mistake I feel horrible about. I was going to weigh my fish, and had it clamped in the lower lip and held it in the water while I looked for my scale in my very disorganized bag. While I was looking the fish thrashed violently and shook loose of my grasp. I caught him in some thick lilipads so he struggled to get away immediately but he was also near impossible to grab with bare hands. He eventually jumped out of the pads and I'm assuming swam away, it was past sunset so I could hardly see. Will it eventually be able to break free of the clamp? It's a plastic rapala clamp, pretty lightweight. 

Lesson learned. Get a wrist strap for your lip grippers.

[Basshole69]

Thanks for the responses guys, worst part is a had a strap and it still got away. I was almost able to recover it but could only grab it with my pinky and just wasn't strong enough.