Staying on the schools?

I'm still new at fishing the California coast and am constantly haunted by the question of "am I doing something wrong?" Whenever a school of rock fish appears on my fish finder(which takes me a while to find), I stop paddling and drop my line. I seem to only get about a 30 second opportunity to catch fish before I lose the school. Either I'm drifting away from the fish or the fish is swimming away from me. I contemplated buying a fish finder with gps to mark the exact location I found a school but they're like 400 bucks! I need that money for a Hobie revolution. It there anything i can do without spending a lot or is this just how it is?

it is just how it is.

You can go old school with one of these marker bouys.  You just drop them over the spot where you got the fish and it will stay over the spot so you can find it again.




Or go super old school by triangulating your position through onshore linueps.  I still fish alot of places this way. 

I use a marker similar to the one agarcia uses.  You can mark a spot with the marker and use it as a reference point with your fishfinder to find the real spot again and again.  You may have seen this video before, but it shows the effectiveness of the marker bouy.

yeah old school...just sort out which way the drift is and then point your bow against it and when you blow over it you just need to paddle uphill a bit. I use shore references (and I have a GPS). A rudder helps to keep you pointed into it but not a must have. You just have to mentally count/note how far you have drifted. It just takes practice.

also remember that the school is not necessarily staying put, so marking the spot they were may not be the place they are.

also remember that the school is not necessarily staying put, so marking the spot they were may not be the place they are.

a wise man once said 

GPS combo is the way to go.  Just press a button and you save your spot.  You will be surprised how fast you drift sometimes.  I used Eagle Cuda 350 for years and it worked OK.  I recently invested in a Lowrance Elite 5 Combo is its like day and night.  Sure cost more but you get more out of the unit.  The plotter came in super handy at GS6 when the fog rolled in.

I use a gps combo but a visual marker like tossing a piece of floating kelp/seaweed works.
The kelp/seaweed won't blow away and is cheap/disposable.
Its a lot easier/faster to paddle to a visible object than it is to paddle to a gps waypoint.

Yep, I always bring the old school plastic throw marker. You probably won't hit the exact spot (often fighting a fish while throwing the marker) but it really helps you visually line up the drift so you can return to the spot and get up current/wind from the marker for the next pass.

Important for loosely schooled fish like crappie.





 

I'm liking the marker buoy idea    I have a very hard time navigating back to a GPS waypoint for some reason (always like im going the wrong way) and a physical marker would be great way to find the spot again.   

I like the look of this one, easily made at home:

http://www.ucidiver.com/make_a_marker_.html



Seems that design might weather swell/waves better than a rounder version?

as the marker/weight sinks, wont it drift off a bit from the desired area? and what if you do hook into a good fish and it wraps around the line/string of the bouy and you start reeling that into your reel?  I have never seen one of these deployed with any of the guys i've had the pleasure of yakfishing with = If O2B never used it, then I will never use it.  

Its just a low cost alternative to gps for marking structure nothing more, nothing less.  I imagine its gonna be as much of a tangle hazard as any other bouy/navigational can.

Its not gonna land directly on your target but it'll give you a reference point to return to. Gps isn't dead nuts accurate either....mine has been off by as much as 15'. 
 
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Shop around a bit, you should be able to get a FF/GPS combo for 200, maybe 250.   It took some getting used to but using the GPS to get back to a marked point is the way I go.   

15' sheesh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,not bad after taking readings from thousands of miles away.. ain't tech great,

F'ing amazing actually. I think GPS only adds about 50-100 bucks to the cost of a FF.

Sometimes it's a matter of lure / bait or presentation.. Sometimes they just dont want to bite. Often the fish aren't on the FF cause the are in crevases etc. That's why they are called rock fish. Hookup up with some of the guys at one of the more productive spots like Timber Cove or Fort Ross .  You just need a confidence booster