Targeting yellowtail snapper, Capt. Steve Hassell exchanges grins with a big porgy. A chumline draws all sorts of surprises over Florida's southernmost fishing reef.

The End of the Bar. Tail End Buoy. Cosgrove Light. Coalbin Rocks. Collectively, they’re all “down west,” the offshore region between the Marquesas Keys and the Dry Tortugas. The names stir the imagination not only because they mark the westernmost limits of a day’s round trip from the Lower Keys, but because season after season, year after year, those locations produce record-size fish and full limits. To this day, going down west is like going back in time to Florida before we all arrived.

The gateway to the Wild West is the End of the Bar. The bar, also known as the Intermediate Reef, is a dead, submerged reef, just south and parallel to the living reef. Wherever it runs—more consistently in the Upper and Lower Keys than in the Middle Keys—the bar forms a trough between itself and the reef, and great foraging grounds. Approximately 15 miles southwest of Key West, the bar’s 60-foot face ends in a hundred feet of water, creating a steep dropoff that swirls currents, catches baitfish in its riffling waters, and attracts predators.

Pelagics frequent the End of the Bar and nearby wrecks, too, such as The Sub, many of them marked on Florida Sportsman Chart Number 011. The area is probably the primary destination for livebaiting trips out of Key West, especially for wahoo and blackfin. While these fish literally come and go with the wind, the bar’s rocky mounts that slope to sandy bottoms also happen to be mature yellowtail habitat, and numerous humps in the area hold big schools of flags. That’s the reason Capt. Steve Hassell and I headed down west on a perfect day to get offshore.

“Pound for pound,” Hassell said, “yellowtail are among the best fighting fish around, and they’re certainly one of the best we can get on a routine basis. Once we find them, the bite lasts as long as the tide is moving and they stay schooled up below us. Most of the time, a couple guys can limit out on flags.”

Given good conditions, it’s about a 45-minute run to the End of the Bar from Key West. On our way, Hassell picked up live pilchards from the shallows of Boca Grande, in case tuna or wahoo showed up for a fight. We were also prepared with chum blocks, about one for every hour of fishing, and a big bag of mahua (glass minnows).

In the open ocean over the End of the Bar, Hassell found his spot in a hundred feet of water. Around us, we only saw two boats: a commercial yellowtailer heading our way, and a big sportfisher live-baiting. The yellowtailer approached us, then veered off, as if we were on the spot he wanted. Then we had another good sign—big marks showing over the hump on the depthfinder. Hassell also liked the look of the water—not too clear, with good current running.

“I find the yellowtail bite best in slightly clouded water, and a little current helps take your bait back to the bigger fish. I’m marking good size fish, all over, and we’re holding anchor.”

Many anglers prefer to jig, as Capt. Ralph Delph and Ron Glinski, back are doing.

We applied ourselves to the sequence of tasks for successful yellowtailing in the Keys. First mark fish; get the drift right; drop anchor; deploy chum and toss out mahua; properly present the right terminal tackle; find the fish at their depths and begin the fights. Hassell uses the standard Keys yellowtail setup: a 3- to 4-foot leader of fluorocarbon tied to 8- to 15-pound mono mainline. For terminal tackle, he likes No. 1 hooks, or leadhead jigs to get the baits down in a strong current. A wide variety of jigs, splitshot, and even flies can be used to reach yellowtail depending on their depth in the water column. That day, we used both spinning and plug reels, and rods with enough backbone to stand up against pelagics.

On his first drop, Steve fed the line out steadily a foot at a time, careful not to give too much slack, until the line tightened and he cranked and came tight to a good fish. His first of the day was not a drag-puller, but they’d get bigger.