Big effort-small return

[Rockfish9]

Some nights these days, I just go through the motions, hit a promising spot for a few hours,then go home.. last night was NOT one of those nights.
I met a guy ibe been showing the ropes to at the boat at 6:30, 15 minutes latter I was stemming tide in one of the rivers storied big fish holes,to my right,a large pile of rocks, to my left a mooring field bordering a flat,by keeping the boat on the edge, a caster can toss a bait up into the flow that is split by the boulders as the water Eddie's in the 20' deep hole behind, in bye gone days, a half hour effort during the ebb would have produced at least 1 40lb class fish..the seagulls applauded our effort but little else happened..
I.moved on to a small flat of stones that was a storied medium fish spot, but is usually bypassed due to boat traffic, not the case last night, we were alone,a good effort with zero results..from there we moved to the edge of a mussel shoal that boarders the channel, 20 years ago, there would have been 20 boats working, that minus ebb..again we were alone, we stuck it out for 2 more hours..only the occasional bellyflop of a sturgeon to tell us there was something there..at the bottom of the tide, we hit to yet another storied rock pile,now close to the mouth of the river, we could hear the roaring surf, we pounded that rock pile and the adjacent mussel shoal and deep water.near bye.nothing.
The tide turned, and I used the electric motor to work the top of the stones, picked up 3 small fish on eels before they moved on, using the electric. We worked our way up river and squeaked over the bar to fish the grassy banks,the wind picked up from the north, but we worked the bank while floating in 18" of water..fishing the rising tide. We stuck it out all the way until high tide, i added 2 more 19" Students to the tally before heading to the dock at 2 AM
.It was 42 degrees when I got back to the truck..
I was cold,stiff, but satisfied there was nothing else we could have done.. there were no giants to be had last night.