This is a thing about fishing that many sadly have not learned yet. Using the highest level gear for every fish just isnt going to work. I started using my 2.3 BiS gear looking for this fish and after over an hour got nothing. Then I decided to take off most of my melded gathering gear and leave on the high perception stuff, and took off all my i70 melded accessories. It works, getting almost all smelts and very few gobys and have gotten a few emperors so far.