I agree that when targeting the resident fish in the winter we typically fish deep and this year (particularly for me anyway) the bigger blackmouth have been very deep. This summer, however, I was hooking them throughout the water column while fishing silvers and I've kind of come to the conclusion that these guys are likely to show up anywhere that they can find something to eat. One can imagine that in the old days the ratio of naturally occurring resident fish (blackmouth) to the huge biomass of anadromous juveniles was probably such that predation (if it occurred at all considering all of the more preferable food sources around) probably didn't have much effect on the ocean bound smolt. Do we potentially have a situation today, though, where we are artificially boosting the numbers of hungry stay-at-homes thus creating a bloody gauntlet that the smaller numbers of normal juveniles who are trying to get out of town in May and June can't get through without substantial losses? Probably have to do a gut check on a bunch of blackmouth in the late spring to find the answer but the season isn't open then.