I live in Florida and fish as often as I can in fresh and salt water (not often enough). I stopped reaching down to lip my largemouth bass three years ago. I was fishing the canal adjacent to my mom's house, in Estero, when I caught a nice little two pound bass.
Because I fish very light tackle when bass fishing ( 4 or 6 lb. line) it makes the fight much more entertaining. Anyhow, the fish was able to make a run under under the Cyprus stump on which I was standing. I was able to free the little sucker from the roots and as I lipped the fish and pulled it from the water, an 8 foot gator, with mouth agape, rocketed out of the water after my fish AND MY HAND.
As I turned to run, my foot slipped on a root and down I went, with an 8 footer clamping down on my bass only inches from my foot. I scrambled to my feet and ran up the bank, then realized I had the rod in my hand and it was still attached to the fish. As the gator flipped the fish (to swallow it head first) I yanked it out of its mouth SMDH. The fish was smashed but that damn gator wasn't going to eat my fish!
I don't lip bass anymore