When i weigh my fish, I always carefully put the hook from the scale in the gills.  Am I hurting the fish?  I see a lot of guys just punch a hole through the fish's lip to weigh it.  That seems kind of cruel.  I'm just looking for the proper way to weigh a fish without hurting it.

Yup, through the gills, but not the red fleshy part of the gills.  You'll hurt the fish if you do.

When i weigh my fish, I always carefully put the hook from the scale in the gills. Am I hurting the fish? I see a lot of guys just punch a hole through the fish's lip to weigh it. That seems kind of cruel. I'm just looking for the proper way to weigh a fish without hurting it.

Do you use hooks on your baits?  :-?

I like to weigh fish but had stopped for a while because I was not a fan of them making that wild "flip off the scale hook" . So I rigged up a "weighing bag" fabricated out of an extra net bag I had lying around. I works well is easy on both me and the few fish that I may catch that are actually heavy enough to weigh. Drop the fish in cinch it closed and weigh the fish bag and all. I tried weighing fish in the rubber net I usually carry but it was a bit awkward.  The smaller net bag seems better and weighing less than an ounce equates into much less math for me.

A-Jay

The gill racker can be damaged if the scale hook is directly in contact with the red parts. If you slightly damage the racker, the bass may bleed out without Catch & Release added directly to the wounded gill.

Poking a small hole in the thin membrane jaw tissue next to the hard lip cartilage and tongue doesn't harm the bass. Putting the bass in a knotted nylon style net to thrash around can harm to the slime coat.

I use a sharp stainless steel stringer clip, poke the sharp point through the thin membrane jaw tissue and slide the scale hook through the clip swivel. You need to let your TD know why the bass has a small hole, if tournament fishing so they don't think you are cheating.

WRB

You need to let your TD know why the bass has a small hole, if tournament fishing so they don't think you are cheating.

Since most are already using cull tags and culling beams, why would there be any suspicion?  They leave the same evidence as a stringered bass.