KEY POINTS:
There's two words almost guaranteed to make the blood of old salts boil: soft baits.
The massive level of publicity surrounding the increasingly popular technique must have driven a fair few squid and pillie merchants around the bend.
It is with some trepidation then that I make this confession: I've gone over to the dark side. I've turned my back on my upbringing. I've not used regular bait for months.
The day of my conversion came in November when, after dropping anchor and berley at a half dozen promising locations and succeeding in doing nothing but feeding nursery-sized fish, I chanced to pass a small tinnie with a bloke hooked up on either side.
On such a tough day, I assumed they must have struck a school of kahawai. So it was with some surprise that I watched both gents haul in good-sized snapper.
I then noticed that the boat had no anchor down and the anglers were using soft bait rigs.
On pulling up about 100 metres up drift of them and breaking out my little-used soft bait rod, it took about 30 seconds to hook into a good fish. In just on an hour I had my limit, the biggest of which was about six pounds - six real pounds that is, not the four pounds that turns into six by the time you chat to the neighbour.
Since then, I've not baited a hook when fishing in the Gulf.
If you're a traditional bait "fisho" and by chance you are still reading, there is good news ahead.
From my experience, soft baits aren't the answer everywhere.
In January, I fished the Pelorus Sound and was lucky enough to catch my first 20-pounder - on a pillie.
That same day my father-in-law also set a PB of 15 pounds and two more fish in the seven-pound range came aboard, all on bait.
We were fishing a 30m channel that tends to hold at least as many 2-3m sharks as snapper.
Thinking soft baits might be a way to dodge the sharks, we did several drifts. We dodged the sharks all right, and everything else that was down there.
So I guess the moral is that bait will always have its place. Probably its time too. I suspect late autumn and early winter - when berleying up a storm in close is usually the best way to go - will still be a time when bait holds sway.
For now though, my catch rate has definitely improved since switching to soft baits - at least some types of soft baits.
From my experience, the rather bland statement, found in many fishing magazines, that all soft baits work pretty well, just isn't true. Some brands are more effective than others.
The incestuous relationship between advertising and editorial in many fishing publications means genuine performance reviews of the various products just aren't possible.
If a magazine, for instance, publishes a review that states "brand A is great but brands B, C, and D are rubbish", the manufacturers of the also-rans aren't exactly going to come rushing back with half-page ad bookings.
So it's left largely up to the punter to determine what works. I've stuck mainly to the market-leading Gulp! brand, with good results.
I have, however, found Gulp!s fairly fragile and thus expensive. So I'm always on the lookout for a bait that attracts as many fish but stays intact better.
New products are hitting the shelves almost daily.
This week, I've purchased a pack of Squidgies that come with a sachet of secret sauce, some ribbon tails that come packaged in salt and some Foodsource baits that claim to support fish growth when eaten.
Finding out how effective these weird and potentially wonderful products are is half the fun ofsoft-baiting.
Anyway, there's no doubt about it, I'm hooked.
