I don’t know about you, but over the years I haven’t found too many people who wouldn’t rather catch a predatory fish on bait over a well presented artificial. Often visual, there will always be something special about fooling a fish on a well-presented lure or fly that you simply don’t get from bait fishing. Generally, you can travel much lighter too, with no need to carry rod rests, berley, heavy eskies, jetty trolleys and the like.
Covering more ground and ending the day with a lot less cleaning up to do is a bonus, especially so if you’re haphazard with baiting up techniques and don’t carry a cloth to keep your hands clean. Rod grips and reel seats can get messy quickly, especially when boat fishing for gar and slimies —species that love to shed scales everywhere. Beach salmon fishing also comes to mind. Between sand, bleeding fish, fish slime and baiting up with pillies, rod grips and reel seats inevitably end up looking like a scene from a Hannibal Lecter movie in a very short space of time. With no cleaning cloth in sight, the quickest resort ends up being the back of your pants, which then gets transferred to the car seats. Don’t laugh, as we’ve all been guilty of it at some stage.