Hi itsa, caught this fish yesterday by bottom fishing with cut bait from the boat. It was very windy and sea was quite rough. The small boat was tilting right and left and the salt water splashing into it from both sides.

nice catch. That bouncing up and down from the boat probably gave the bait some good action on the bottom.
I fish a lot with soft plastic lures from a kayak and whenever the sea is a bit rough I get the most hits. I think it's from that extra action on my lures. A bit like jigging, except that the waves do the job for you

Good catch

Is it a cod or a mullaway?

I often use soft plastic under a float and just let the water action do the job. In fact, I use that method for squid. I never jig for squid, I only ever use a float.

It's a mullaway. I tried soft plastics but never had luck. Can you please post pictures of the soft plastics that you use and how you jig them. Do you apply fish scent on the soft plastics. During this time of the the year, the fish in my area are Jacks, threadfin salmon, groupers, macks and tuna in deeper waters.

Generally I am told that fishing is better when the tide is receding but during my last fishing trip, all the fish were caught when tide was coming in but absolutely no bite when the tide was receding. Experts in this group please opine.