If i want to remove hooks easily from fish I just crimp the barb down. Very rarely will I need a pair of needle nose pliers. I'm not crazy about the hemostats.
Like Cecil, I find that a crimped barb is the best solution when I'm concerned about catch and release.
Over more than 50 years, I've spent a lot of money on supposed hook removal tools, from oddball looking red and white plastic things that look like they have perforated footballs on each end, to forceps that look like hi-tech rubber band guns.
Hemostats sure are hard on the fingers, but at least if they are made of high quality stainless steel, they will open and close without too much finger pain. I do have several sets in various tackle boxes.
No matter what kind of lubricant is used, and what brand is purchased, long nose pliers always seem to become extremely difficult to open and close if they regularly are used for fishing.
Sometimes, just nothing seems to work -- like when all you see is the eye of a long shank hook at the entrance to the gullet, a hook that has ripped a gill that is gushing blood, or the end of the hook is poking out of an eyeball. This is when I'm really glad I have my own private water.
I've seen way too many dead fish with hooks impaled in gullets or gills to know that cutting the line and leaving the hook will allow a fish to recover.
When I regularly fished public waters it really bothered me when I legally had to release a fish that I knew would never live, no matter what I did.
Geeze, as I re-read this, my post sure seems grim. But, then I think about my walk around the perimeter of my pond this afternoon with an ultralight rig. I was casting a rubber worm hooked with a crimped barb #1 long-shank gold hook. The fish, particularly the bass, were just going crazy. Nearly every cast resulted in a bass or bluegill. Not a single one was dangerously hooked. I also believe that part of this is due to a feel -- gently pulling a line to set the hook as soon as the slightest hit is sensed.
Good Fishn'
Ken
