Good advice. I appreciate it!

just keep going through the gills....i promise youll get it if I did. Im kinda PETAish when it comes to fish handling and was really dreading the gut hook....and yea the first few sucked and took longer than youd like. But im not exaggerating....i dont even care when i gut hook them now because I know Im gonna get them back in the water in good health...its really surprising how good a technique it is and how little damage you seem to do (fish dont thrash while you do it...if you do it right LOL). You wont learn if you dont practice....of course use discretion and dont kill fish to learn...but dont be afraid to go through the gills. Once you get the hang of it, those hooks really pop themselves out

EDIT:
Unless its a ned head...i have had bad luck with those the couple/few times...but that might be due to zman plastics since you cant pull them off the hook as easily as other plastics.

You are right about the Elaztech type worms. That's all my wife uses. I usually have to pull the worm away just a little to get my hook remover tool on the hook. I know what you are trying to accomplish going through the gills by flipping the hook up side down. This way the point is "pointing" downward and doesn't have anything snag on when it is coming out. My tool is doing the exact same thing EXCEPT you do not have to go through the gills at all. It literally only takes a couple of seconds once you get a hold of the hook with the tool. 1 push down of the tool as you squeeze the handle and it will flip the hook upside down and the hook will come out. The key is to push the tool down to the bend of the hook and keep pushing down some as you quickly squeeze the handle. I have unhooked countless fish my wife has throat hooked and even a few of my own that I have hooked. I have the fish unhooked and back in the water in no time. It even works when you can only see some of the hook shaft. You just have to "grab" what you can see of the shaft and run the tool to the bend of the hook, push & squeeze. I'm like you, I hate mishandling fish too and got tired of having to cut so many of my wife's hooks. Once I came up with the correct mods to the tool, it's worked perfectly. Like I said before, you can practice on a cardboard box just to see how it works. It's not going to come out of the cardboard like it does a fish since the cardboard is so hard but you will get an idea of how it works.