Heed this warning!

In 800 feet of water, Jamie spotted a floating T-shaped board, and a short distance away, dolphin. For the next half hour it was a catching frenzy as we nailed one after the other on pilchards. We kept two dolphin in the water to keep the school nearby and Jamie chummed to keep the action going. The fish were smallish, but almost all were over the 20-inch fork minimum.

Finally the dolphin left.

“Out here we can almost always find dolphin,” said Ed. “A lot of times we find them on the run home, because in the morning with the sun low, it’s hard to see them.”

Then it was back to the reef. We eased into 180 feet of water and began drifting. Ed handed me a baitcasting reel rigged with an 8-ounce weight and a butterflied ballyhoo. He instructed me to drop it to the bottom, then reel up about 10 feet of line. The reel had a fast 6:1 gear ratio.

“If you get a grouper, the trick is to get him off bottom before he can reach his lair,” Ed explained.

As soon as I dropped deep I got a strike and quickly reeled. “That looks like a kingfish,” Ed said. Unfortunately the hook pulled.

Ed’s true passion is yellowtail snapper fishing. He looks for key items: current, lots of chum and schools of these fish.

“Most people go to a spot they think might hold yellowtail and start fishing. But it’s important to find the fish first,” he said.

“Depending on the type of bottom unit you have, yellowtail look like triangles or pyramids off bottom. Bigger ones are deeper and smaller ones are right above them.”

A swift current is ideal. “If you don’t have current, try something else,” he advises.

While most fishermen might use a box of finely ground chum, Ed uses at least two boxes of coarse chum on each side of the boat and spreads it over a large area, doing figure-eights with the boat. Instead of spreading chum in a straight line, he trolls the chum over a square area about 200 feet in each direction. Then he waits, anchoring just upcurrent from the chummed area.

“You want to give the fish a chance to find the chum,” he says. “Wait 10 or 15 minutes. The coarse chum attracts bigger fish,” he says.

We used 10- and 12-pound baitcasting outfits with 20-pound fluorocarbon leaders tied to No. 4 J-hooks. The bait was ballyhoo strips, but Ed believes in bringing a wide variety of baits when pursuing yellowtail. Besides ballyhoo and shrimp, he recommends squid, silversides, bonito and skipjack chunks.

Ed dropped a bait astern. He let it freespool with the current into the chummed area.

“You let the line go out and you know you have a fish when it suddenly goes out faster.” It happened just like he said, and a 16-inch beauty was reeled in. We quickly landed a half-dozen more, but then a midday squall chased us inside the inlet.

That night we ate superb fresh fish, without visiting those posh sushi bars in downtown Boca.

Boca fisherman Terry Lage displays a big spring kingfish.

Boca’s Inlet Woes

The city of Boca Raton dredges the mouth of their inlet about every five years. Between dredgings, the waterway does become hazardous. Hurricanes don’t help. Last year the inlet became so perilous, city officials discussed closing it. Local boaters were outraged.

“People have lost their lives in our inlet,” said Gene Folden, chairman of the Marine Advisory Board of Boca Raton, which was formed in 1999 to advise the city on maintaining the inlet. “I’ve seen boats capsize in the inlet. I’ve also seen boats run aground.”

Locals haven’t forgotten that in 2001, a 52-year-old man drowned in the inlet after his sailboat overturned in rough seas.