deep hooked fish

hello, not sure if I should put this in the conservation section or here but anyway... Recently I caught a coalfish of about 1.5lbs and it was deeply hooked and pumping blood from the gills so after a short attempt of trying to remove the hook and failing I decided it would be better to put it out of its missery and hit it on the head and gave it to a gratefull angler beside me for his tea.
I then deep hooked another one of about 2lbs but it wasn't bleeding and with the discorger the hook came out easily enough. I placed him back over the pier and saw him swim straight away semingly comfortably down to the depths below. However about ten minutes later I saw what I am pretty certain was that coalfish bellyup on the water.
Now my question is will most deeply hooked fish die fairly soon after?Is there much I can do to avoid this, I strook fairly soon,and bait was on a 1/0 hook with point showing? What is best to do with the fish when this happens, hope that most will be okay or give it to someone for tea?
The advantage of this hapenning on a pier was I was able to see the fish later but on the beach if a fish swims off stronglyI would presume/tell myself it was okay.
I did a search but didn't find what I wanted on deeply hooked round fish.
Thanks for any replys. Happy fishing to all.
Col

just a guess but maybe the fish wouldnt have made it anyhow if deep hooked, sometimes best just to cut the hook and leave it in the fish if deep down.it may have made a dart away instinctively if put in from a pier upon impact with the water.maybe from a beach it might just have went belly up at the first wave even if carefully handled and returned safely.. who knows

Hi Col ,
Read this somewhere but i havent had a chance to put it into practice yet , with something fine go through the gill and out of the mouth of the fish , hook the line and pull back through the gill so the line is in a loop outside the gill , now pull the line in the direction of the fishes tail thus turning the hook upside down , now all you have to do is pull the line conventionally from the mouth . Hope this makes sense Col . Apparentely the fish has a 90% chance of survival using this method .

Hope this helps Andy

Circular hooks will help prevent deep hooking

Have used the method described by Andydee ( especially with flatties ) and it really does work.

If i cant get the hook within a couple of minutes, i just cut the line as close to the hook as i can and return the fish.

Sometimes they dont survive but the vast majority certainly seem to.

Lee