Fish tailers are terrible - even picking up a fish by the tail and holding it unsupported injures them internally. A soft knotless nylon 3/8 inch mesh bag on your net is the best way to handle them in my experience - allows you to get them off the hook before they are exhausted. Leave the net in the water of course.

Had kind of a bad experience releasing a small wild coho that I had hooked on the front hook of a double hook herring rig last year. The fish wore itself out pretty good, and was just lip hooked, so I got out the pliers and grabbed the front hook while the fish was in the water. The fish of course whipped around, and buried the 4/0 trailing hook in the back of my hand. Then it proceeded to thrash around with the front hook still attached to me. Thank God for barbless hooks - had to unhook myself, let the fish run off, wrap a rag about my hand, reel the fish back in, net the fish, unhook it while I was bleeding all over the place and about ready to pass out - but I can't imagine what would have happened if I couldn't have backed the hook out - I had dropped the pliers in the water already and couldn't reach the knife on the deck to cut the line.

Now I net the fish - nothing like learning the hard way