I too think it might have been better if they had quickly broken off the steelhead. But, how many of you have ever had something like this happen to you. I know many of us would have been so excited with the UNINTENDED hookup that we might not have given any thought to how stressed the fish was. Heck, I hear that in some places it is legal to KILL a wild steelhead.

I have landed and or photographed literally thousands of steelhead and my guess is that the fish in the photo would recover quite nicely. The very pronounced eye down is a very good sign the fish is healthy and still has its equilibrium. Many magazines will not accept a steelhead photo unless the eye is looking down like that.

Should it have been played that long? No!

Did it survive the treatment it got? Probably.

Would it have had any chance of survival had someone bonked it? No!