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Actually I have a 38lb thrust on her and we kept ourselves in pretty good position.
The pool noodles are a safety device, drop a metal net in the river and kiss her good-bye but with the pool noodles she'll float and save you some bucks. You get used to the pool noodles very quickly and they slide up and down the handle easily enough to land a fish twice the length of the opening (as the photos can prove).
The fish was thin and not solid like other species of fish I have caught recently (catfish,walleye,or smallies).
I held the fish for almost 10 mins before it was struggling to get away. I let it go and it swam away at a moderate speed. Not really slow but by no means as fast as I know they can swim.
There are two pieces of pool noodles, simply because the first piece was not enough to keep the net from sinking so I added another piece. Probably a single piece would be best but I don't see a need to do that. I made the pool noodles inside diameter a littel bigger so it would slide up and down easily and have never found it to interfere with neting a big one and I am not afraid someone is going to drop it in the river.
One interesting thing about this fish was that the top bill of its mouth was lopped off. It's hard to tell in the picture but if you look closely you can see it. The top bill was about two to three inches shorter than the bottom. That may be why it isn't feeding and getting fat. It did seem healthy though.
Hey Hawgwobbler, the blood was from the mouth. It did get away from us in the canoe so it smeared the blood around a bit. It was fairly deeply hooked and at first I had this sinking feeling I was going to be releasing the fish with the lure in it's mouth or hanging it on my wall. But after deciding which fingers I really might not need (talk about TEETH), I got the courage to place the jaw spreaders in the mouth and pop the trebles out. I was very happy when I had the lure out and went to the task of reviving it.
P.S. - Mr J said you would like the shot of the live release.
I think you guys did the best job you could releasing that fish, but my bet is that it's raccoon food by now or very soon.
I see so many pike/bass floating and it's usually from a combination of bleeding mouths/throats and infections from slime being accidently removed from thrashing in the boat, wrong nets and handling them with bare hands.
I think some fish are more sensitive to our handling them then we know.
ever think of going for salmon 
