You actually almost always have access to your saddlebag at all times even if you have your chocobo out or not. You just cant access it during dungeons or other instanced content. Its pretty much an extra inventory box for you.
If you're fishing just to spend time reeling in random fish, sell all your bait and just buy Versatile Lures.
If you're fishing for something specific, trash anything you can't just easily buy again.
If you're fishing to fill out your log, after clearing an expansion, you don't truly need any of that old bait; newer fish from newer expansions will require newer bait.
As someone clearing out big fishing (just finished up HW), I can tell you from experience that you really don't need to be holding on to very much bait at any given time. Being generous, I doubt you need more than a dozen inventory slots dedicated to fishing bait if you'd narrow your focus down. And that's including the 3 baits for Ocean Fishing.
I totally understand where you are coming from and have thought about it. But sometimes, I just want to fish as I come upon a "zen fishing moment." And like you and others have noted, there's the versatile lure. But man, it rubs me wrong every time someone says just use versatile lure. I get it though. I honestly like the idea of the different baits for different fish. I just think if they are going to have that layer of complexity (not just 3-4 baits) then they should have some kind of tackle bag with a limited number of spaces, maybe 30 or so. I'm not looking for a solution to hold every single type of bait out there.
That already exists in the form of boilies and versatile lures but it comes with its own set of challenges. Namely, you lose the ability to target certain catches. A versatile lures are great if you're just trying to catch one of everything for the log but is less than worthless if you're trying to catch a specific fish.
Bait variety is for targeting specific fish. And, quite frankly, most of them don't even need to be "targeted." You've got the ones that will trigger an Intuition, most of which will all favor the same small handful of baits per expansion. And you've got ones you need for mooching, which is much lower priority and, outside of Intuition mooching, can just as easily be done with a Versatile Lure.
I'm telling you. As someone going back through and filling out the Fishing Log for each expansion, you really, really, really do not need to hold onto nearly as much bait as you think. Once you've caught every ARR fish, you're good to throw out 90% of ARR bait. I've cleared up through HW, and, near as I can tell, I will literally not need anything I've used prior to target anything worthwhile in StB.
If you're actually serious about catching fish, you really don't need as much bait as you think. And if you're not serious about catching fish, what's even the point of having all that bait anyway? Grab something that will catch anything and just cast your cares away.
Bait should just be turned into skills instead of items, like ranged ammo were items long ago
The island inventory is attached to your island, not to your character. You don't carry it around with you.
There's no need to carry around all the baits with you all the time. Each zone has a vendor that sells the basic baits for the zone so you can buy when you enter the zone and discard/sell when you're done with a zone. The only bait you should be carrying with you all the time is the bait you're frequently using.
My personal example: I'm into hunts. I help with S rank spawns so I carry wildfowl flies for Judgeray and butterworms for Glimmerscale. I'm also into crafting and Custom Deliveries. I carry the Metal Spinner (designed for the delivery fish) and Mackerel Strips (to catch Thavnairian Calamari for foods). I'll also carry Versatile Lure in case I want to make a quick trip for some common fish needed for crafting or join friends on an Ocean Voyage.
So that's a total of 5 baits/lures I carry with me all the time. If I get in the mood to chip away at my Fish Log, I'll buy the bait/lures for zone I've picked at the time I do it then get rid of any leftovers when I'm done.
There's no need to carry every bait/lure all the time because you're not going to be using all of them all the time.
Unpopular opinion, get rid of all bait and just make the fishing spots level appropriate.
I shouldn't need a 3rd party website to track the various baits for various fish. This isn't real life, it's a game. I shouldn't have to manage 20+ different baits.
Also:
Why haven't we gotten an increased Gig in 30 levels? The relic in ShB was the perfect opportunity to update it.
you mean you don't want a 99 stack of each bait for each sPECIFiC FISH in your inventory?