As long as they have enough room to fully function the gills, it should work. Plus, probably, cool water.

There is probably a whole lot that we don't know about how a fish recovers from stress. Obviously, the fish must have some coping mechanisms as they have to escape seals and such, making explosive moves.

All too often we try to extrapolate results. At least partly because we don't want to spend the money to repeat studies. We know, for example, that C&R works really well on resident trout. It also seems to work pretty well on anadromous cutthroat. Among the big differences is that the trout fisheries give the fish a break over winter when they can recover and they are not ripe or even maturing when C&R'd. The Cutties might be caught as they ripen but since they are actively feeding all through the process maybe they can recover. Or, we simply don't C&R a significant number of the population.