i stick right to the rules for two reasons: 1: you never have a guilty concience, and I have bad enough luck that i don't need to be pissing off the fish gods and 2: there's a slippery slope effect to consider...
I have wondered though that if a fish is hooked in the eye, it's technically a foul hook, and therefore not eligible to be kept, but that has to make its chances of surviving to spawn go way down. would it be more ethical to keep it? I guess it's not exactly goignto waste, as the fish does remain in the food chain of the river ecosystem.
Interested in hearing others' thoughts.
I guess it depends. Fish don't need eyes to spawn. Heck, if you go up to the spawning beds, some of them you would swear are zombie fish by the time they actually spawn. Is losing one eye going to make it more difficult for them to get to the spawning bed? Perhaps. It would be harder for them to spy a bear or bird trying to eat it for sure but this ain't Alaska with bears waiting in hordes like fisherman during a sockeye opening.
If you are going to keep one anyways, personally I would prefer you keep that one and hopefully any officer that checks will understand and congratulate you rather than ticket you but who knows.