I was having a discussion with a dive partner about how I saw a small group of wsb in a particular kelp one day. I was coming up from the bottom directly beneath them unprepared (I had been hunting halibut on the bottom in about 30'). They were just suspended not doing much and by the time I saw them my buoyancy was bringing me up and the necessary movement to get my gun aligned spooked them.
I assumed that if those fish were in the top four feet of the water column that any others would also be in the same depth so I began to make drops to just below 15 feet and start swimming upside down underneath the canopies to look for more silhouettes.
My dive partner contends that the fish hunt looking for bait below them so that the approach I was taking was more likely to get me noticed then swimming on the surface looking down.
I contend that the fish are most likely looking for bait on the same level or sky-lined above them so that the surface swimmer is more likely to get noticed.
Any thoughts?