Parker,

Since you're partial to a challenge and evince a moderate disdain for "training wheels," perhaps you're ready to move beyond the crutches of spinning and casting gear, and bait - the greatest training wheel of all, since fish like to eat it. After all, many a winter steelhead has been caught by anglers using rods made of split cane, silk flylines, gut leaders, and un-weighted flies. And of course, no drift boats or jet sleds, or neoprene or gore-tex waders.

It seems to me that well over 99% of the anglers are using a variety of training wheels to bring a fish to hand. Thought I'd suggest that the training wheel relativity scale is broader than what you seemed to be seeing.

t.i.c.

Salmo g.