Yup. Technique works great with 2 flies and a bobber, if you’re into that sort of thing.
A hook keep is like a wisdom tooth, it’s there but not useful and ends up fucking everything up so you remove it. Glad to see it getting bred out of fly rod DNA.
The problem with the hook keeper is most leaders are longer than the rod. Once you hook your fly into the hook keeper and reel in the slack, the junction of the fly line and leader are now in your guides. When you get to a new spot you have to set your reel down and pull the line out the guides...