Marty,
We were out all day friday, fished from thomas point south to 84A. We hit every depth on both side of the channel, to include the channel. We zigged more than we zagged, but zagged the whole darn area. Caught 1 rock all day.. have a couple knock downs which may have been caused by the waves breaking the bands... we pulled lines around 4:30, then headed in to Adams for dinner and a few cold ones. heard then from a double top secret source
that a bite turned on at buoy 86 and someone pulled in quite a few rock in no time running 4 boat rods.
Saturday, different story... We dropped lines by the southern most anchored ship right outside thomas and headed east across the channel. Marked bait EVERYWHERE in 30-48 ft of water, rock under it, but nothing would take.. (Started questioning out speed, spread, etc.) WE then decided to head to the channel as charters started working the area hard. In 90, that's right 90' of water we picked up 1 rock, just NW of 86. hit the mark button on the GPS, made a circle to that same spot... picked up a 2nd rock.. hit the mark button again, literally right next to the 1st one.. made a shout out to mlag telling him a bit was turing on where i was. He made his way over as we circled the spot again, and picked up a 3rd rock right on our marks. Mlag was able to pick up one right on the marks as well. As we went for another circle, the fleet caught onto us catching and circle, and quickly shut the bite down... after that, it was back to the sloow searching and marking bait/rock with no takers.. pulled lines around 11:30. Definately a strange year... Very random. seems the fish are very scattered, or just aren't in the bay in large numbers and those that are here, are feeding in fast burst where they turn on for 10 mintes or so, then they're done. be on the fish for those 10 min, and you'll pick up a few.. if not, well, get use to the smell of a skunk...
Sorry for the long write up.. just my observations from the 2 days we fished this past weekend