To me, at least, float fishing is, well, boring. I like to call floats the training wheels of the steelheader.

Don't get me wrong, as I do a fair share of fishing with my training wheels, as I love to Flydogg with a sliding float and Unlce Joe's Eggs, pitch some Opher Prawn tipped jigs on a float, sandshrimp under a float, etc.

To me, at least, I'd much rather boondogg up a fish on some nice berries, drift fish up a fish, side drift up a fish, or smack one with a PenTac spoon. Much more satisfying to me not to have to use the training wheels...regardless of how "effective" those techniques are.

At least to me, fishing isn't about the numbers. It's about the experience. I'd gladly trade a 50 fish day on training wheels in on a 1 fish day while Herzogging up a nate on a PenTac, or Hoh'ing up a fish on The Wormie.

Finally, only a fool would totally exclude training wheels. I almost always have at least 1 training wheel rod rigged up, for whatever technique that will work best for that day, when fishing. They are effective, but as I said, I'd rather put my time in doing maybe a different/harder technique for that one fish rather than play the numbers game.