Quarter-ounce feathers in pink, blue-and-pink, blue-and-white, combinations of black-and-red, pink, silver, and purple and armed with 5/0 to 7/0 hooks on straight 30-pound-test leaders work well but sometimes appeal only to smaller blackfins and skipjack tuna. When this happens, you can often target bigger fish by switching to 4- to 6-inch plastic squids rigged with an internal egg sinker, in amber or pink; 51--2-inch soft headed trolling lures in pink or blue-and-white, or black-purple-silver, also rigged with an egg sinker ahead of the hookeye; or a flying fish lure rigged with a double hook. Troll these larger, splashing surface lures at speeds where they pop, skip, or break surface at least once every five seconds without skipping wildly out of the water and flipping around. Subsurface, slow-trolling jig heads baited with black plastic bass worms, glow worms, curly tails or various plastic eels and the new plastic baitfish bodies, can yield excellent catches even on the days when the livebaiters aren't doing well.

Be sure to run at least one on your downrigger, 60 to 80 feet deep. Each time you hook up, cast one of these soft weighted plastics out behind the boat near the hooked fish, let it sink 60 feet or so, and retrieve--you'll often nail a second fish.

Another tactic that produces relies on dead bait.

Contrary to popular belief, blackfins can be effectively chunked at the Hump. Cut 1 1/2-inch cubes of fresh skipjack or blackfin, toss in a handful along with any entrails, and freeline a baited 1/0 to 3/0 hook on straight 20- or 30-pound test in with the chum. If you've caught an amberjack, do the same thing with the roe, starting your drift near any commercial amberjack boat. At times the tunas get so focused on amberjack entrails discarded by the commercial fleet that they are hard to catch on live bait. Switch to light wire leaders if you start getting cut off, as there can be nice wahoo hanging around as well. Don't bother trying any of this with bait that has been frozen.

Speaking of amberjack, this species is one of the available alternatives to blackfin tuna. Many a day has been saved by dropping a live blue runner or grunt down deep.

Amberjack fishing also has a tendency to produce vivid memories, but few are as vivid as one held by an anonymous customer of a now-retired Islamorada captain, whose name we will also omit to protect the guilty.

The captain and his mate had managed to produce an outstanding morning of offshore action, including a sailfish, one wahoo, and a bunch of school dolphin, none of which was substantial enough to fulfill the greenhorn customer's preconceived notions about big-game fishing. The somewhat crusty, senior, and now infuriated skipper set a course for the Islamorada Hump, quietly directing his mate to rig an 80-pound outfit with a pound of lead and four circle hooks, shoulder harness the guy securely to it, sit him in the fighting chair, lock up the star drag, then freespool four live baits down by hand--and not to step back and throw the reel into gear until he was sure all four baits had been swallowed. Needless to say, when the reel was engaged, the surprised man was jerked bodily out of the chair and skidded rapidly and unceremoniously to the transom, which he slammed into with authority, saved from plummeting overboard only by the mate's firm grasp on his belt. Pinned now to the covering board, rod butt digging sharply into his substantial gut, he screamed hoarsely for the mate to cut the line. The captain interjected loudly,

"We can't--we've finally hooked the monster you wanted!"

After a few more screams he nodded to the mate, who quickly cut the line. This catapulted the beet-red angler backward onto the deck, silent and shaken.

That story took place in early May, near the end of the time when amberjack spawn each spring at the Islamorada Hump, 409 Hump, West Hump, and Key Largo Hump. There is a chance of catching one almost anytime of the year at these spots, but February through April represents the peak.

When they are most densely packed in March and early April at the Islamorada Hump, it can be impossible to get a live bait of almost any kind deeper than 80 feet.

The standard rig is a 3-way brass swivel with 12-foot, 50- pound-test leader and 12/0 offset circle hook, and usually eight to 16 ounces or more of lead. Start the drift by leading the Hump to the southwest at such a distance that your bait enters the strike zone as you pass over the 290-foot deep peak. Bounce bottom (this will take some practice for the novice), then quickly crank up 30 feet or so before you hang bottom. When you feel the slow, strong pull of the take, don't snatch back--lower the rod to horizontal and wind hard, and you'll usually be hooked up. You may have to look around the corners and sides to find them when they are not plentiful, and time your drops to deliver the baits to them.

During the hottest bites, fishing deep jigs can be very effective and allow you to use lighter tackle. Amberjack fishing generally stays good into early summer at the 409 Hump. Beware of stringent bag limits to protect this now hard-fished species--you can only keep one in Monroe County--and release any unwanted fish. Carefully puncture the air bladder first by inserting an ice pick two inches behind the pectoral fin until you hear the sound of escaping air, press to fully relieve the pressure, tag, and release.

Another Upper Keys seamount specialty, practiced effectively by only a few boats in the charter fleet, is livebaiting wahoo. Mackerel scad or feather-caught juvenile blackfin and skipjack tuna are the usual baits, slow-trolled on light wire leaders with stinger hooks. The same rig deployed off a kite is excellent as well.

Deep dropping can also be excellent in the areas surrounding the deeper seamounts, and right on top during times when the amberjacks and sharks are not plentiful, such as mid to late summer and early fall. A real potpourri of species can be captured depending on the location and depth, including pink porgies, gray and golden tilefish, snowy and misty grouper, yelloweye, vermilion and blackfin snapper, among others. This is another area where it is particularly important to catch only what you need and not overdo it, as these spots can be fairly easily decimated and do not regenerate very quickly due to slower rates of growth and reproduction for many of the species. Carefully check current federal regulations recently enacted to protect some species in this fishery, and remember that mortality rate is virtually 100 percent for everything you bring up from these depths.

Quite a few billfish are caught annually at the various seamounts. Sailfish and occasionally white marlin come up to live bait chum thrown out for tuna. I remember an afternoon at the Islamorada Hump when a charterboat had raised a white on the livebait teaser. The captain loudly narrated the events over the radio as his mate first cast inaccurately and then somehow missed a take on a subsequent cast. This gave a neighboring charterboat, alerted by the radio grandstanding, time to maneuver for a throw at the now very excited marlin, whose characteristic blunt dorsal was clearly visible above the surface as the fish sliced through the free-swimming pilchards. You can guess the rest--the boat with the quiet, focused captain hooked and eventually caught the 65-pounder and tagged and released it. The moral of the story is always have a pitch rod ready, rigged with 50-pound leader and a sharp hook standing by ready to bait and cast (and don't waste time cluttering the airwaves when you could be fishing).

A few blue marlin are caught each year around the seamounts as well, usually in the course of dolphin fishing. At least one was caught accidentally by a charterboat dropping a heavily weighted rig for amberjack. There is very little directed effort in this category, i.e., slow-trolling live mullet, school dolphin, skipjack or blackfin tuna, or mackerel scad on 300-pound-test mono leaders and an appropriate rod and reel (for Islamorada, 50-pound tackle will cover you), or running a full spread of billfish lures or lure-bait combinations and teasers. Most blues are seen and caught from April through summer. Here again, a dedicated rod ready to bait and deploy can often be the difference. There is usually time to bait a billfish that has chased something smaller you are bringing in, or that has been sighted lurking around the edges of a dolphin school, but not if you have to rig up first.

Fact is, while there is usually something biting over the humps in the Gulf Stream, you're never sure just what you may get into. No matter how you are rigged, you probably can't cover it all--but it's a cinch the tackle you do have will get a good workout all the same.

How to Get There

Here are the GPS and loran coordinates for navigation to four productive seamounts off the Florida Keys. Latitude and longitude are in degrees, minutes and tenths, so set your GPS unit accordingly. The humps are fairly substantial bottom features, and slight aberrations in GPS or loran accuracy are easily remedied by keeping an eye peeled for rips formed by current changes, birds feeding overhead and other boats working the area. A depthfinder will also prove useful.

Coordinates given for the Key Largo Hump, listed below, are based on a rough midpoint; it's actually less of a hump and more of an "S" curve between 280 and 330 feet off French Reef.

Marathon Hump (West Hump) GPS: 24-25.528' N; 80-45.328' W Loran: 14032.3; 43358.5 Depth: 516 ft.