The V Tower, like others in the area, holds plenty of action.

“If the current is fast, hook the pinfish in the nose so he lines up with the current. If it’s slow, you can hook him behind the dorsal,” D’Antoni said. “Cobia like scent, so you can use dead threadfin. You can also toss jigs with white shrimp tails, or jigs tipped with squid to freeswimmers on the surface. They’re not too picky when you first get to them.”

That pinfish hit bottom and turned nervous. Next the rod bent, and so did the other. Instant double hookup. As we raised two cobia, a third swam up. D’Antoni pitched it a pinfish, which it took. We had a triple hookup on our first drop.

D’Antoni fought two, and I prepared for him to gaff one while I held my own. “Have the box open, and clear a path straight to it,” he told me. “We don’t want this fish going nuts in the boat. It can crush rods in the rack and otherwise mess you up. When I stick ’em, they go straight into the box.”

After he landed that fish, I turned my attention to the cobia at the end of my line, just in time to see it slip away, off the hook. That’s alright, I told myself, good release.

Meanwhile D’Antoni put on a swordsman-like demonstration on the port side of the boat with the third fish. He fenced the rod around standing lines, dodging and ducking, and gaffed that cobia. That quick rod work can cut the fight time in half. “Steer the fish,” he agreed. “If it swims left, put pressure to the right. If he dives, bring him up. Constantly control it. That way you greatly reduce the duration of the fight and therefore lessen the chances of a breakoff. If it’s a release fish, you let him go in better condition. Also, keep the cobia’s head in the water by the boat. Don’t raise it, because that’s when they shake their heads and spit the hook. At your first shot, which comes early with a cobia, gaff it. If you miss, your next chance might take a long while.”

As he brought that fish aboard, he showed a neat trick to tame the dreaded “green” cobia. If one does hit the deck, grab the fish under its gills and by its tail and bend it together, forcing its tail to its head, and it will settle down. He easily handled that fish right into the box.

In what turned out to be another in the continuing experiment of baits in various placements in the water column, he dropped a blue runner (after clipping its tail to slow it) for a big cobia or goliath grouper.

“Goliaths infest the wrecks, especially out to the west. I get tired of fighting them, and they take a lot of fish, too,” he said.

That’s a sentiment echoed by many local anglers, who are beginning to talk of a goliath a year permit, or some restraint on the flourishing species.

Some days you can catch cobia all afternoon out in the Lower Gulf, and others, the bite shuts down quickly. The hotter the weather, the more critical it becomes to get out early. That was likely the case for us. It was half past 10, and broiling. I had a strong taste of summer in the Keys on my upper lip—salty sweat. We lost one more cobia on the bottom, and released one at the boat before the bite quit, barely an hour after we arrived. D’Antoni noticed, however, that one of the super pilchards that he dropped to the bottom came up neatly slashed in half.

“Kingfish,” he said when he looked at it. He tied on a light wire leader, and added a splitshot to the length of 50-pound leader on his double line “to help it sink, since they’re on bottom.” He chunked a few more dead threadfins into the chumslick.

The Gulf felt peaceful for a minute. We barely rocked on the 2-foot chop while a few birds worked in the distance and nothing at all on the surface indicated what life coursed under us. Then the kings struck, and it turned rowdy, quick. A hot run off the stern and a quick fight back to the boat earned us a bright king of 15 pounds, not a smoker, but a respectable fish. “These fish hit so hard and fast, the circle hook slides right into their jaw and hooks them for us,” D’Antoni said.