Bruce; fished a charter down by 78A and found fish 58 ft down, in 60 ft of water
We put a few in the box and had a few shorts. Must have been 50 boats in a very small space. We were laughing at the sights. Saw boats snagging each others lines and fighting over who had the toughest tackle. It was all fun and games until a charter cut too close behind us and I had a line screaming
I grabbed the rod, locked down the drag, and won
We got our tackle back, and his as well
Seriously, it was close to bumper cars out there. Fish were tightly schooled and as I said, hugging the bottom. John would kick it into neutral, all the boat rods would hang limp, and he would slip it back into gear. We would pick up at least one fish every time, but this also meant that 9 other rods were either F'd up or lures were muddy.
It kept me busy, for sure. Meanwhile; two or three boats would race into your spot trying to accomplish the same thing.
I quickly switched out umbrella's for John's spreader rigs; they can lay on the bottom and come back up correctly. I also changed out parachutes and buck tails because they would pick up the mud. Storm shads quickly dominated my spread.
I didn't see anybody tear up the fish. Many well known charters were working the same area and stayed late trying to get their limit.
Good luck,
Play nice,
5th (Marty)