Does that reset/jump still happen when you're in copy-mode?
If not, maybe you can you rebind the scroll wheel to enter copy-mode if it's not already in it, and then scroll, and bind enter/return while in copy-mode to exit copy-mode.
Oddly enough I searched for a fix for this after posting. And amazingly I found one that works (as well as several that didn't, and one that require add-ons)
For anyone interested, this is in my .tmux.conf now
unbind -T copy-mode-vi Enter
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi Enter send -X copy-pipe "xclip -selection c -i" \; send -X clear-selection
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi MouseDragEnd1Pane send -X copy-pipe "xclip -selection c -i" \; send -X clear-selection
You would have to switch the xclip for wl-copy if you're using Wayland, and some form of pbcopy command on Mac. No idea what windows folks do.
If not, maybe you can you rebind the scroll wheel to enter copy-mode if it's not already in it, and then scroll, and bind enter/return while in copy-mode to exit copy-mode.