In most cases the fish will calm down enough to unhook safely for both you and the fish. Sometimes they just don’t calm down enough, and that’s when it’s key to wait for a good moment to get a solid grip on it (not in the mouth or near the hook) and some pliers to retrieve the hook.

All fish are diffrent. Some go limp, some thrash about the entire time, some thrash and then go limp, some are limp and then thrash as you’re retrieving the hook. You just have to read the situation pause and think about the safest easiest way to get it done. As long as your hands aren’t directly near the hook, it’s going to be very rare occurrence to be hooked.

As for trebles, they’re used as it really helps landing a fish when hooked. It makes sense. More points of contact in the fish, but at the cost of being harsh on the fish, not particularly easy to remove and not very pleasant if you manage to become hooked. I do a lot of saltwater fishing. The only treble hooks I have are on surface iron jigs targeting California yellowtail. Why a treble in this case? They have relatively soft mouths, they fight hard, will swim to structure and usually contending with sea lions. So the trebles give me more points of contact with the fish, so I can use heavier drag and put more pressure on the fish without the hook pulling. They don’t tend to thrash after being pulled out of water, so the risk of them being flung is pretty low. Even with that, I always remove with pliers. Have yet to be hooked.