Wow, sounds like your sense of ethics is pretty intense. I would want to land the fish if for no other reason than to get the hook out of its mouth, sounds like it was hooked pretty good. I would think that dragging that amount of line it could get tangled in just about anything and kill the fish. I am curious as to how you can make any kind of ethics judgement at all without knowing what kind of fish it was? Had every chance to be a hatchery fish as any other. I feel the guy that re-tied on the king and then let it go did a fantastic job. Did he do damage to the fish by fighting it? Probably a little, however the fish did bite the hook. If you don't want to chance hooking an illegal fish through legal means, you probably shouldn't fish. After all, you present the bait but you really have no control over what will bite it. I think in either case, no ethical boundry was crossed, at least not in my mind. No if a guy were snagging them that is different.