Landing: on the reel or not?

[peregrines]

you could let the fish decide if he/she is reel worthy.

keep excess line (beyond the distance you're actually casting) on your reel.
try to keep excess line clear of **** when you retrieve so it doesn't get tangled if a fish takes and runs.

if it manages to clear the line, play it from the reel.

[plland]

Originally Posted by Pocono

Here's a question that's clearly situation specific, so let me define the setting. It's posed in the context of fishing for trout (browns, bows and brookies) in the 8-15" range, small freestone streams, rods of 8.0' of less and 4 wt. lines or lower.

I've lost some very strong-fighting rainbows that were in the 15" range in deep, fast water because I didn't get them on my reel right away--using a 3wt rod that is. However, usually I can strip line in to land trout less than 15", even on a 3wt. I've also landed a few 17-18" trout on a 3wt by stripping line in, but I got lucky in that I caught them in shallow water, and they didn't fight very hard--rather, I was able to land them before they took a strong line-snapping run. With an ultralight rod, though, I'd consider 15" the general limit for strip landing a trout.

[pdq 5oh]

Originally Posted by FlyDog

....I start spinning the reel to pick up loose line while keeping a constant tension on the line. It seems at this time the fish manage to shake the hook and the tension on the line vanishes as I'm still trying to get line back on my reel.

Something I've noticed when trying to get line on the reel quickly. If I don't reel smoothly, IE I just reel like crazy, the rod tip bounces/flexes very fast. This would allow slack in the line, and let the fish off the hook. This may even be more a problem with smaller fish. Maybe a good reason to strip line when landing smaller fish?
BTW, I must admit I try to get the big bluegills in my pond on the reel so they can take line and seem much bigger than they are.