you've heard from experts such as Muppet, Espresso and Whk with sage advice, but I'd like to add a couple of things to help you on the learning curve i was on last year or so.
1. Cast in the direction of the drift, but at about 2 o'clock. If you cast directly down wind, you spend most of the retrieve just catching up with the line slack and you can't react as well to takes when the line zips away or straightens.
The key seems to be keeping a relatively straight line to the jighead.
2. Don't dismiss dragging as an option over summer, particularly over sand/mud feeding zones when fish are grubbing on the bottom. My dad is elderly and enjoys holding a rod dragging a grub tail while I cast ahead.
3. If you need to use a sea anchor, try to attach it to the bow quarter so that you aren't always trying to cast up the side of the boat, which in my opinion is more awkward than the other way around.
Typically, you fish on the drift, as others have said. But give soft baiting a crack down a berley trail if you're out with bait focused mates. you could very well outfish them.
Good luck and watch some of the videos featuring Mark Kitteridge - either from ocean Angler or on the TV shows he's been on. He is good to watch in action.
Also the Jet Ski Fishing Channel, which mostly has examples of dropping a soft bait into sign, rather than the classic cast and retrieve method.