Good read, thanks for posting.
Working in corporate America, anything fishing related that has to do with following "best practices" immediately turns me off. I think there's probably some accurate stuff here, but bottom line, if you creel the fish, it has 0% chance of making it. All in all, I think better advice is found in trying to avoid fish getting to the point where you need to run them through that battery of tests to determine the likelihood that they'll make it....Don't fish in water too warm, play the fish quickly/don't use tippet smaller than necessary, limit time out of the water, etc. I'll see if I can fit a scientific holding pen into my fishing pack to be in compliance with best practices in the event of an audit however.
There's some obvious fish that aren't gonna make it...I inadvertently hooked a large Rainbow while WW fishing a large Smallmouth creek a couple Summers ago. It was in the shade, probably over a spring seep when I hooked it, but I had to drag it through the 80+ degree water in the sunshine I was standing in. I thought it was a large Fallfish until I got it close. It was essentially dead by the time I touched it. Couldn't right itself and made no effort to flee once unhooked, so with the writing on the wall, I just chose to creel the fish and ate it for dinner that night.
In regard to the eye looking down thing...I think that actually makes sense with what the article reports. I think the article is just suggesting the eye will remain focused, sharp, and looking down regardless of how you orient the fish's body. If the eye is sharp and focused down, I've long used that as an indicator of a fish's relative health when being released. I can't recall a fish that had the sharp, focused, downward looking eye that didn't immediately bolt upon release, or the flight test...I didn't know it was called that until this article, but I'll often grab a fish's tail after release to induce it to bolt back to cover.
