I haven't fished out there in years because of the crowds on weekends, but we used to do pretty well with lots of different methods. There were times when only wire line jigging worked, times when only tube and worm worked and times when nothing worked, even though we could see fish holding in the rips. Probably should have tried Alan's rubber on those days.
There was one day about 6 or 7 years ago that we could see big fish holding near the bottom in deep water in the rips. We tried everything and weren't hooking up. About 10 other boats weren't having any luck either, trying everything from bait to trolling. We decided to take a break and eat lunch and hope the bite would turn on afterwards. As I grabbed my sandwich, I noticed the plug on my rod in the rocket launcher had gotten loose and was swinging around. I grabbed the rod and made a cast into the rip behind us. About 2 cranks with the polaris popper was all it took for big bass to nail it. My dad grabbed a rod with a popper and did the same thing. We got 6 nice fish on 6 casts with poppers and then it shut off again. We couldn't believe the bass were coming up to the surface from that deep and hitting plugs.
I guess the lesson is that if something isn't working, don't be afraid to try something else. Even if it doesn't seem like a good idea at the time, it might work.