Just strip the fish in. On any fish smaller than a couple pounds there's no reason to worry about using the reel at all. It's really just there to hold line on any rod under a 6wt and even on rods that big depending on how they are being used. If you hook a big fish thats pulling hard enough for you to worry about breaking the tippet, hold the line loose enough to let the fish take line when it wants to while you're stripping until you can either pull it in or it's taken enough slack line out to get onto your reel.