ND. There are a lot of guys that can school you on the ship channel a lot better than me so just take my info for what it is worth. I am just getting going on the ship channel myself but I have approached it a lot like bass fishing underwater structure. Depth finder has been crucial. There are points and flats in the underwater contour that because of current make the fish relate to the structure. You will cruise down the channel and your in 10 foot of water 20 yards from the bank and then all of sudden your in 25 foot of water. You just went over an underwater point and these irregularities are what position fish in current. When the water has been high tide the active fish have been up on top of the points and flats or on top of the drop off sometimes as shallow as 3 foot. When the tide has been low the fish seem to relate to the drop off edge more or the deeper end of the flats and points. We have caught most of our fish in the 5- 10' depths but the trout seem to suspend and cruise at these depth ranges(at least here lately in the heat). They can be fairly shallow over deep water many times so paying attention to the corridor that the bait is crusing in has been helpful. A few weeks ago near Prien the bait was crusing on top(mullet) over 25 foot of water and some of the trout were right under them. When I do use live bait, I have been fishing live mullet with a large spit shot about a foot to 18" above my hook. Just throwing out and letting it drift keeping a semi tight line. You eventually get to the bottom and can just bump it off toward deeper water until you find out where they are and how they want it presented. I do not know "spots" like some of these guys do so I cannot make a milk run so until I learn those things I just try to find pretty water with bait and concentrate on fiquring out where the fish are ambushing the prey. The rock jetties are a different sort of deal so far for me. I have seen everyone in a 100 yard stretch catching trout and then sometimes only some key spots seem to be producing (and I am sure there is a reason why) but we have done well there lately. Hope this helps.
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