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When to do it ? When your fish is upside down/floating and cannot right itself or swim downwards. Can be caused by numerous things. The technical name is BaroTrauma.
This is where to grab them if you can with a small fish. This subdues them well.

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This is your bottom landmark. The middle of the side fin. The top landmark is the lateral line in the middle of the fish. Anotherwords, where the point on the gill plate is.Your needle/syringe measuring point will be halfway in between those two landmarks. Notice the wet hands. VERY IMPORTANT !

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This is how you measure how far back in the fish's body to insert the needle with this type setup. Notice how the needle/syringe is halfway between the middle of the side fin and the lateral line/gill plate point. Put the point of the needle where the body begins behind the gills. Now, where the plastic part of the needle attaches to the syringe (colored part), THAT is your insertion point (just about the same as on the surelife video.

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Now, put your finger over the open portion of the syringe to plug it off and keep water from getting in there.

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Insert the needle at a 45 degree angle toward the head, with the needle bevle (the sliced off looking portion on the very end of the needle) in the up towards you position. You medical folks - just like starting an IV or drawing blood or going by a rib to pop a pnuemothorax. No different.

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Lower the fish into the water so it's body is completely submerged. Take your finger off the end of the syringe. Bubbles should start coming out. If not, simply take your finger and pop the end of the syringe to create a little suction and that should start it as well. If still no bubbles, your needle is clogged or you didn't follow directions and stuck the fish in the wrong place.

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This is ultimately what you see when the procedure has been done right. Notice in this pic that there is no syringe. It can be done with just the needle, but you have major clogging problems with no way to clear it unless you blow air through it with your mouth. I prefer the syringe since you can use the plunger to clear out any obstruction in the needle and have something a little bigger to hold on to. The syringe in the pics above this one is a 10cc syringe. The needle is a 16 gauge hypodermic needle. Many times when you insert the needle , you will hear air escape through your syringe. This is normal. Submerge the fish as previously mentioned. You let bubbles out for a count of 3 on little 14 inch squeakers. For fish 3 lbs. and up, I let it out for a count of five. If the fish persists on floating upside down, you can take another 3 seconds of air out of them by inserting the needle back into the same hole. DO NOT let the air ALL OUT. Just enough so they can swim down on their own normally. As Charles says in the video on Sure-Life, you can and will feel that fish relax. Take the needle out to see how the fish does. Take out too much air (bubbles quit) and the fish will lay on it's side on the bottom and it will stay there. NOT GOOD!

Now, you may experience trouble with larger, 5lbs. and up size fish. All you have to do is use the same landmarks as above, measure the needle in the same way, but move back to the middle of the syringe and use that mark as your insertion point. Do not go past the middle of the dorsal fin/ anal opening line (look at the middle of the two fin's on it's back and draw a line visually to the vent opening in the bottom of the fish) or you will hit nothing but meat. Sometimes the farther front insertion point just doesn't work with larger fish because their anatomy is a little more spread out rib cage wise. Going further back sometimes is the key.

For those of you wondering about the hole, it has been proven in tests here at the lodge in the ShareLunker tank that the hole completely closes over in 7 hours. The hole in the air bladder almost closes immediately when the needle is taken out by tissue that the needle pushed out of the way upon entering. Hope this helps ! Just FYI. Come by the lodge anytime and I can show you first hand or come by the weigh-in's we work and I will be glad to show you whatever you would like to see. Regards.

Good post Carl, Thanks for the pics.

Great post Carl, I fizzed one between 8-9 at Ivie by the ramp Sunday someone released her without fizzing. soon as i was done fish swam off, got wet had to wade out two her but was worth it watching her swim off healthy!!!

Now that's what I'm talking about ! Way to go sir ! And thank you for doing that !

I've been losing sleep over this since our club tourney last weekend.I saw 4 or 5 fish that needed fizzing.Now I think I can do it, so I won't leave another one floating without trying to fizz it.Thanks.

Great how-to, Carl. Thanks!

like i said before, i think carl should be put up for an award like sportsman of the decade or something, after all, this man has gone way past the "im a concerned angler" he is top of the list +6 carl, keep it up