Prolonged fight

[frogge]

Hey,
As you can see by my previous posts I'm new to this sport and not only want to observe proper etiquite(? sic), but also preserve the resource. I tie all my own flies and always debarb the hook. I try to land fish promptly and make sure they are good to go before release. Only recently have I been successfull in hooking fish big enough to snap my 5x tippet. Here's the question. If you have a trophy brown on and he's gotten out in the current, do you give some line and see if you can eventually get him back to the eddy, test your equipment and see if he breaks off, or dive in and swim after him like in "a River runs through it". I chose the break off( not entirely on purpose) and am in someways glad that I never got to set eyes on the monster, since every day he grows larger. Thanks for any suggestions, Frogge.