I am not a proud man but....

[MuskieBait]

Yeah, sometimes I get looks when fishing with floats...or I get looks when fishing with a bottom rig with bait.

I get the looks when I'm steelheading with bait that is not roe bags as well...all these wannabes that have expensive gear who only fishes roe bags and have no clue at all about anything else that works even better...I just chuckle because I've an arsenal of bait that can get fish to bite better than roe bags.

I started fishing with bait (I think everyone does)...then went mad buying and trying out different lures. Don't get my wrong, lures do have their time and place, and getting to understand how and when to use a lure effectively means you develop a really good understand of the fish's behaviour. But then again, there are an unlimited number of lures you can buy, try and use...is it always necessary? The answer is no for me. So I started selling some of my lures and now I fish more and more with livebait. And livebait is good ole worms most of the time (or shrimp and squid in the ocean).

The worst looks I've gotten is when I go out of my way to target some small species of fish, catch it, then take out my camera to take some pictures. I've people said that that's just bait and not worth my time and definitely not worth the pictures...then I said "Yeah, but I've caught over 100, 200 or 300 fish species of fish. How about you?" They may say "Yeah, but you're just catching small fish." But I'll tell them about the story of my 120lb Yellowfin Tuna, or the 88lb Samsonfish, or the Mekong Catfish, Giant Barb or White Sturgeon...and they shut up after.