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I think your concerns about catch and release mortality for tuna over easy handling size (say over 50 lbs) are well placed. I don't, however, agree with your assessment that bleeding bass usually die.
Think of people with bad nose bleeds (put that person in a shower and it looks even worse.....especially in NIB's case). Very few of them die. There is a lot of blood in a person and a fish and both creatures have evolved to handle losing a significant percentage of it. Several years ago caught a hard fighting healthy fall bluefish that had an entire previously torn gill arch protruding from one gill cover. He had healed that and was no worse for the wear.
Bass eat all kinds of sharp things and must sustain damage to their gills that causes bleeding all the time.......certainly they have evolved to handle this. I suspect the more likely cause of death in deeply hooked fish (particularly with plugs) is the time out of water required to unhook them.....not the hook damage itself. Regardless of how much blood a fish appears to have lost, if it can be revived and swim away it probably has a reasonable chance of survival.
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