Olivett's Luck 7 crew ended a fish-filled day by boating a stout cobia.

“Snapper,” Ralph yelled as he reached for the landing net. “And a fine one at that,” Karl replied eyeing the 10-pounder.

Bites came hot and heavy for the next two hours as red snapper, referred to as “genuines” in these parts, continued to attack our live pogies with gusto. We hauled in snapper after snapper in the barely-legal, 20-inch range and untold numbers of shorties that should grow into next year’s keepers. Every so often in this catch-and-release snapper bonanza, a real stud would hit to keep us on our toes. And that’s not all. Flagler Reef was alive with all kinds of fish stopping in to dine. Turtles, too, along with thick pods of threadfins, popped up intermittently.

By day’s end, we caught and released nine species—red snapper, gag grouper, black seabass, grunts, cobia, kingfish, shark, Spanish mackerel and triggerfish—all at the same spot. We’d also used the same baits—live pogies on a single-hook bottom rig with a 4-ounce lead barrel sinker. As the old story goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Precisely the strategy we employed while bottom bumping Flagler Grounds. Our reasoning? If every fish that swims by chomps it, why change?

We really weren’t out to reinvent the bottom-fishing wheel on our offshore foray, so we stuck with standard gear and terminal rigs for probing Flagler Reef’s depths. Rods were 30-pound, fast-action bottom sticks sporting high-speed conventional reels spooled with 40-pound braid. The fast-action sticks combined with the no-stretch braid enabled us to detect even the faintest of nibbles, not that hungry, fired-up genuines bite all that soft anyway. This combo also allowed us to use a lighter lead to sink baits into the strike zone—an added benefit of using braid to bottom fish.

Hooks were standard 5/0 livebait J-hooks attached to short, 6-foot shock leaders testing 80 pounds. Olivett rigs most of his bottom tackle in this manner, rarely changing it unless the bites stop. “Sometimes snapper get smart,” Olivett mused while Tammy and I bailed genuines one after the other over the gunnel. “When that happens and I’m still marking the fish on the bottom screen, I downsize to 40- or 60-pound fluorocarbon leaders.”

“No need for that today,” Tammy and I quipped back as we fought another cookie-cutter pair of 21-inch genuines to the surface. This pair, however, had another fish in tow—a cobia that at first look appeared massive. That is until Tammy quickly fed it a live bait and set the hook.

“Must have been two cobes down there,” Tammy said after reeling the shortie to the boat for release. I had to agree, because the fish that caught my eye had some weight, length and girth. It was definitely not the 24-inch pipsqueak that nailed her bait.

Karl sat quietly all through this commotion, biding time soaking a livie on bottom while we reiterated his awesome grunt catch rate. That is, until we decided to pull anchor and check a nearby reef.

“Got one,” he called from the port transom. From the bend in his rod, we couldn’t decide who had who. A few seconds into the battle it became apparent that Karl either had the biggest red snapper of the trip (Flagler reefs regularly give up 20-pounders) or something else, maybe a fat nurse shark or a hard-pullin’ amberjack. Both species visit these reefs regularly.

Red snapper attacked bottom baits nonstop for the better part of two hours.

Our guess turned out to be way off mark. Twenty feet below, a wide, dark-brown shape came into focus. “Cobia!” Tammy yelled from her perch in the T-top tower, “and it’s a big one.” Fifteen minutes later Ralph sank the gaff into the 40-pounder and Karl reminded us that, “I prefer to haul in big cobia, not measly 8- to 10-pound snapper.” All in all, a great comeback to end a fantastic day at Flagler Reef. Yep, sly KW got in the last word.

We shouldn’t have been too surprised. On most fishing trips to Flagler’s nearshore reefs, rarely does anyone return with just “squat.”

FS