Help interpreting what I saw

[morsax]

I had a frustrating day of fishing yesterday and want to get some opinions from the "experts" out there. What have I gotten myself into?

Left SPSP with my permaHo Bug Guy (Bob) around 1:00 and headed to a spot where there were rockfish (sorry to burn the spot). Here is what I found:

In the deeper water, there were huge piles of bait stacked up but I didn't see big fish marks in with them. As we rolled up into slightly shallower water, the bait would abruptly end and there would be bigger marks hanging there (mostly suspended--but some closer to the bottom). We threw everything short of dynamite at them and couldn't buy a hit. The fish never seemed to move and never started busting up bait. It seemed to me that the rock we just chilling and not in a feeding mode--maybe waiting for some decent current. As far as current goes, there was a tiny bit when we got there, but it died out and never really got going (we hung out for quite a while). Unfortunately we had to run back to the park to take cover from the impending storms (Bob was mumbling something about aluminum being a good conductor) so we didn't get to wait for the current to really pick up.

Is that a probable explanation for what we were seeing? Any strategies for getting those fish to bite?

Anybody want to take my jigging so I can figure this stuff out??

Thanks
Hans