you must have been fishing just to the right of me.there was 3 lads just to my right ,2 fishing together and 1 lad by himself,dont know how you had trouble holding bottom cos i was using a 2 hook trace with a 5oz grip and a single hook(pennel)trace with a 6oz grip and held no bother.i know what u mean about bait coming back untouched and no bites,i was the same for the first couple ov hours,but where u were fishing is best fished over the top of the tide(2hrs either side) even if u dont get fish up 2 high tide its always worth giving it a couple of hours back water. I caught all the fish on big lug baits,i also had rag and a load ov different frozen bait including crab and mussel but the fish were not interested.