Legal fish?

[schoolie monster]

I ran into a situation Sunday that I hadn't before.

I caught a decent schoolie and during the fight I could see the blood comin' out of his gill, so I knew I had hooked him bad. I was using a 5" bass assassin with a 3/0 hook and the fish had inhaled it pretty good. Right in the gills.

Now gut hooked fish, I just clip the leader as close as possible and release the fish. My first question is what our the schools of thought about gill hooked fish?

I work the hook out as carefully as I can.

Anyways, the fish was pretty bad off and I worked him for a while, but he kept going belly up. I knew he was close to 28" so I put a tape on him. I had to work him a bit to get 28", but I really wasn't sure. I got him back in the water and ran the trolling motor for awhile, pulling him through the water and he started to get frisky and finally kicked out and off he went.

Got me to thinkin'... what's the legal measurement? Nose to tip of tail? I never really worried about it 'cause I don't keep many (0 in 2000, 2 last season, 0 this year... not preachin', just my choice).

If the fish dies, would you keep a borderline fish? Or feed it to the crabs... that was my debate.

A badly hooked short, well, you just feed it to the sea. But this fish was really, really close.