Humans can survive with 1 lung so why can't a laker survive with 1 gill raker missing ? I happen to know for sure that bass and pike can survive with them ripped out because I have caught several that are missing large peices of their gills and they still hit my baits and looked quite healthy fish aren't as delicate as some people lead us to beleive but we all still need to try our best to properly handle fish .if that fish went in a cooler it's survival rate 0 even if it's only got a 30% chance it's still better than 0 ,if it didn't make it there's gonna be some full seagulls out there.
BTW nice fish Vince