In this video, Ed shows the proper way to land a fish without A) over stressing the rod with too high of an angle and B) needing to land or beach the fish at all. You can also strip in 4 or 5 ft of line that can be released as the fish gets close and you can tail it or grab the leader, thus relieving the extreme bend on the rod tip. The fish is kept in the water and it takes nothing more than to grab the hook(barb less of course) and give it a twist.Done!A nice release with no stress to the fish.

The high rod position when landing a fish has been responsible for more broken rods(spey and single hand)than about anything I have seen.If your rod tip is above your waist/chest for extended periods of time,especially when trying to land a fish, you may want to think about that for a minute.Rods are tough but extended stress to the upper part of the blank occurs when fighting fish that way. Fighting a fish with the butt and lower part of the blank will tire the fish faster and save your rod.