That's fair comment Noel, there's a good chance of being seen as huggy feely bleeding heart new age folk if you lament the loss of every single fish.
It is possible to be a wee bit too emotional/precious about these things and lambasting the captor publicly is a new blood sport in some ways
I do still knock the occasional fish on the head, but I am not sure what I'd do if I were faced with a trout of that size and the quandary of to keep or to return. The amount of will power it would take to return such a fish is possibly beyond me, when it happens again I'll let you know what happened
With that said, that is a record fish.
It warranted better treatment and should have been brought in to be weighed much earlier than it was.
Otherwise it looks like just another dead fish and whilst a significant development for the fishery it is just another dead fish.
Smoked or stuffed do you think
H