Lip grips are a relatively new landing device. There are several different kinds available but all have a set of jaws that penetrate the soft tissue of the fish's mouth and clamp shut, allowing you to land the fish without touching it with your hand. Some have built-in scales so you can land the fish, weigh it, and release it immediately.

Good Things about Lip Grips

A lip grip holds the fish and allows you to lift it from the water without touching it, meaning you won't damage the slime layer. The fish hangs from the lip grip in a natural position that does not injure it and it can swing freely so there should not be any damage to the jaw or muscles of the fish's mouth.

Transferring a fish from a net to a scale puts more stress on the fish. A lip grip with a built-in scale eliminates this problem and weighs the fish more accurately than gaffs and nets with similar built-in scales. It's a very simple process to land, weigh, and release a fish with a lip grip.

A lip grip is easier to handle when fishing by yourself since it's compact and operated by only one hand. And the fish is much more secured and your hand is safer than when you hand-land a fish.

Bad Things about Lip Grips

The fact that a lip grip must penetrate the flesh of a fish's mouth means some damage is done to the fish. Although putting a hole in the soft tissue of the mouth of most kinds of fish will not do permanent damage, it can allow infections to start. And if the fish is very big its weight can tear the hole even bigger during landing.

You need a strong grip to clamp the jaws shut on models that require you to squeeze the handle shut, and you also need a strong grip on models that open when you squeeze the handle and the jaws close on release of the handle. When using a lip grip, all the weight of the fish is in one hand, so you need to be strong to handle a big fish. And lip grips rely on some kind of mechanical action so failure is possible, meaning you can lose a fish if yours fails.