We dumped another bucketful of water on our gasping baits and motored back to the edge of the weedline. A charterboat was trolling where we'd been, probably chasing the dolphin schools that had been running the same edge a few days before. The green-and-gold speedsters can turn up off the sea buoy anytime, but the last few winters have seen more than usual, while for reasons not yet fully understood, the summers have been uncharacteristically lean.

As well as chasing sails, Tiffany and I had high hopes of inviting a dolphin home to dinner, she harboring the aforementioned distaste for the oily kings. In any season, dolphin associate with debris in weedlines. Trolling either lures or rigged dead baits such as ballyhoo is a popular method for locating them, but my personal favorite, at least in shelf water out to around 200 feet, is to sit still and let them come to surface live baits. I'll spend the idle time probing the water column with a deepjig or bottom bait. The boat becomes simply another patch of shade for wandering mahi-mahi schools. Similarly, at times the fish are traveling deep, where traditional tactics may miss them. I recall one nice dolphin last summer that struck a herring behind three ounces of lead, at least 70 feet beneath the boat.

By this time, we were out of sight of the sea buoy and its associated kingfish fleet. Tiffany's turn at the rod was a near repeat of the first fish. She picked up the rod, fed some line, pushed forward the lever drag, and cranked tight. After a sluggish start, another sail popped out of the water and shimmied on its side--right for our boat.

"Reel! Reel! Reel!" I yelled, doing my most faithful impersonation of a charter skipper.

Wide-eyed and incredulous, my wife piled 20-pound line on the reel as fast as her little hand could wind. The fish torpedoed past us to our stern and took up the remaining slack on its own. Tiffany was fast to her first sailfish, an acrobatic demon that gave full account of the species' aerial prowess.

"Did you see that!" Tiffany shrieked. "Did you see how far he tail-walked?"

The fish was still tail-walking.

Twenty minutes later, she had him whipped. I spun the boat a few times as the stubborn fish attempted to circle us. Tiff tugged on the rod and turned him over to where I could grip the leader, and then the bill. The circle hook had done its job--a perfect bite in the bottom jaw, easily removed.

Back to the weedline we went, and out went our last two, half-dead baits. The others had expired and were awaiting bottom-fish duty.

Just for kicks, I dropped a 1 1/2-ounce arrowhead bucktail on an 8-pound spinning rod. The depthfinder read 180 feet. Wahoo on the way down, maybe a mutton on the way up, I thought.

With big sweeps of the rodtip and some fast reeling, I didn't have to wait long. Something grabbed the jig halfway up to the surface and doubled over the light rod.

Turned out to be a lost kingfish. Probably trying to escape the melee at the Cuban Hole, I mused.

Tiffany put on one of those smile and frown expressions as I taped the fish out at 25 inches--legal, by one inch. I dropped it into our icebox and turned and asked:

"Now how about some of that kingfish salad?"

Get a Fix

The Miami sea buoy is a veritable hub of offshore action. Strangely, it's often taken for granted by local anglers, perhaps because it's literally right in the middle of everything. The red-and-white buoy sits in 120 feet of water at the end of Government Cut, the international shipping channel leading into Biscayne Bay. From December through May, look for the fleet of boats to the south, usually in around 80 to 90 feet of water. You've found the kingfish schools. Kings are also caught in similar depths north of the Cut, as well as in deeper water right off the buoy. Productive depths can change. "I'll drift until I determine a pattern, then anchor up, start chumming, and wail on 'em," said local skipper Dave Kostyo.

Sailfish, dolphin and tunas generally hang out around the color change that forms when northbound Gulf Stream current slides in near the buoy, often after a period of easterly wind. When you find a ruler-straight edge of green and darker blue water, with that swirly, bubbly look to it and blobs of sargassum drifting by, be ready for some serious action.

You can catch a variety of baitfish at the pair of range markers--squatty, lighthouse-looking structures on the south side of the Cut. Anchor upcurrent, or power drift, and put out a block of chum in a meshbag. Drop a sabiki rig and you'll catch anything from threadfin herring to goggle-eyes. Other baits can be caught in about 20 to 25 feet of water north of the jetty rocks in Wayne's World, an area named for Capt. Wayne Conn, a local partyboat skipper in the Reward fleet. Watch for terns, or marks on your depthfinder. The biggest baits (speedos, tinker mackerel, full-size runners) often school up around the sea buoy, last in the buoy line.

To the north and south of the sea buoy are county artificial reef sites with loads of fishing possibilities--for pelagics on top as well as groupers and amberjacks down deep. The Key Biscayne artificial reef site is about three miles south, with shallow reefs such as the Lakeland (135 feet, lat. 25-42.073'; long. 80-05.004') and deep drops like the Dry Dock (235 feet, 25-43.172'; 80-04.581') and Billy Goat (185 feet, 25-42.343'; 80-04.788'). North of the sea buoy is the Pflueger site, with the Deep Freeze (135 feet, 25-49.303'; 80-04.951'), the Lotus (218 feet, 25-50.957'; 80-04.647'), the Tortuga (110 feet, 25-49.243'; 80-05.090') and others. For more information, call the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management at 305-372-6881, or visit the agency's artificial reefs Web site link at www.floridasportsman.com.

If you plan to fish close to the sea buoy, be mindful of the heavy shipping traffic at the mouth of Government Cut. More than a few boats have lost fishing kites to the fast-moving freighters that ply the area.

Miami Sea Buoy Facts

Miami Lighted Buoy 'M'--the sea buoy--is described by the U.S. Coast Guard as a Morse A beacon, meaning it flashes one short, followed by one long, burst of white light--the Morse code sign for the letter A. To mariners, this means safe water or mid-channel, with safe passage to either side.

Exact position of the buoy can change during the day, as it swings about in a circle described by the 270-foot chain which tethers it to the bottom in 123 feet of water. What keeps it there? An 18,000-pound concrete "sinker." But the buoy can move, for instance in a severe hurricane, or collision with a ship. Officially, the sea buoy is considered "on station" as long as it is within 150 yards of its assigned position: latitude 25-46' 06.186" N, and longitude 80-05' 00.067". The 155 mm beacon is powered by two 100-amp-hour batteries that are kept charged by a 12-volt solar panel system.

Routine service and monitoring of this international waypoint is handled by Chief Dennis Dever and the U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team based in Miami Beach. The team takes care of a total of 650 beacons in South Florida, including Port Everglades and Port of Palm Beach. "We go up as far as Jupiter, halfway to Key Largo, through Florida Bay, the Everglades and on up to the Ten Thousand Islands," said Chief Dever. "We'll hit the road with a 21-foot trailered boat, and launch near the aid that has a problem."

Every five years, a 175-foot Coast Guard cutter from Mayport, Florida, makes the trip to Miami to haul up the 26-foot steel buoy, and replace the hull, chain, swivel and sinker--a mighty job indeed.