"Thoughts?"
Keep walking till you find em. LOL
Work holes and troughs. Make sure you fan cast as fish can hold on one side vs. the other.
Change your retrieve. There are times when the dead stick will work, other times moderate or quicker steady retrieve is best.
Make sure you pay attention to tides and fish moving water.
Zones can change so fish deep to very shallow as you fan cast holes.
When you get a nibble, focus on that "zone"
Baits will also influence the bite. GCSW in the 6" variety will let you vary bait length. I've had days where I couldn't get a bit on anything but the full 6" bait ... and other days when I couldn't get a peck on anything but the 2" size.
MORF is the good ole stand by. I also really like to fish crappie paddle tail baits when the going gets tough.
Heh .. only joke ... I know you know this stuff but had to have some fun with my SCSF type reply.
The fish may be eating the red crab if it's washing up close to shore, but seems like the biomass is in deeper water, and won't affect inshore fishing. Plus beach fish are opportunistic. If you present correctly, in a zone where there's fish, they will bite. Every year will be different when it comes to predator habits. If there was exact science one could predict and slaughter a species. The guessing game is natures protection, from us lowly anglers anyway
. Warmer water this year, different type of upwelling, different tide and zonal flow will affect feeding and habitual behaviors. Remember when the Humbolt squids were attacking swimmers a few years ago? And fishermen thought it was the end of rock fish for good? Well ... new patterns let populations rebound. I have a feeling fishing will still be pretty epic next year as it will take a while to reset to neutral .. then dip toward la nina cooler trend. Cycles are fun to watch. Steve and Tom may be giving these inshore beasts lock jaw ... but they'll soon be back. I can't catch a spotted bay bass though and it's pissing me off. Perch? No problemo.
Good luck skunky!
D
