Well, shooting them through the eyes works too!
You're right to follow Senor Stylron's advice with the stringers. The safety pin type you (and I) use are real easy to use and rarely get snagged...we here in No Cal wear them when we're on tanks and feeding the fish prior to the big comps...
If you wanna save yourself some time and you're by your float when you shoot your fish, always a good thing by the way, put a tad bit more point on the stringer's end that you'd lace thorugh the gills and mouth, and next time,
before you remove the shaft from the fish, run the stringer through the eyes and fasten. This will usually sever the spinal column and/or brain them, making things nice, calm and dead.
I'm waiting for an ex-Mother-In-Law size to come out...
sven
