A fish holding tool for safe and secure holding of a caught fish for purposes such as removing a hook from its mouth. The fish holding tool operates as a pliers having a planar four-bar toggle linkage, where the upper jaw of the upper member remains stationary and the lower jaw is opened and closed by manipulation of the lower handle. The fish holding tool is made of a lightweight, buoyant material, and allows stability by the positioning of a lower-jaw tab into an upper-jaw slot and by a toggle linkage having a toggle-linkage bumper. The fish holding tool provides a tapered extending tip on the forward end of the upper jaw, which facilitates the opening of the mouth of the caught fish even where the fish forcefully holds its mouth closed in reaction to having been hooked. In order to facilitate easy and secure gripping in wet conditions with a struggling fish, the fish holding tool provides a molded grip texture on the outer surfaces of both the upper handle and the lower handle and provides an upper-handle bulbous end and a lower-handle bulbous end. The fish holding tool also provides a lanyard with a buoyant lanyard-end terminator that facilitates easy retrieval, a secure grip during use, and buoyancy of the entire tool if dropped into the water.
