The key to finding cobia in the Keys.

Up ahead, higher on the flat, we saw an expanse of clouded water, a mullet mud, Phil said, “something you see a lot more of now than you used to, thanks to the net ban. There are pilchards in there, too.”

On the flats, you need sharp eyes to read the water. Polarized glasses help, of course, but the best way I’ve ever heard to explain how to see well came from Phil. You let your eyes see the pattern of the flats scenery, and look for anything that breaks that pattern. Any break in the pattern will likely be movement, something alive that you shouldn’t miss.

The cormorants showed us the rays, since the rays weren’t mudding. Those birds kept on the rays and tipped us off almost every time to an unseen ray. Rays feed on these flats all year, and sometimes permit follow them, but so far this day, they just weren’t mudding, and they had no cobia following. Also, Phil pointed out, the cormorants were skittish, flying all over the place, another indication that the rays weren’t seriously feeding. The cormorants stick fast to feeding rays.

We needed faster moving water for success. To feed, the rays want strong current for a few reasons. First of all, tidal flow loosens tiny creatures from their hiding spots, but also rays must be moving themselves to stir up the shrimp and creatures off the bottom, which will invariably stir up the marl, sand and coral bottom and cloud the water around the ray while it noses. Like permit, they want a clear view of potential predators, so they’ll always work into a current which quickly carries away the muddy water. If they’re working in still water, it will cloud up around them and they’ll feel like they might get ambushed by a big bull shark. Also, they’ll work against the moving tide, because that will bring the scent of their prey to them in the first place.

On the other hand, Phil pointed out, too strong a tide might present other problems. It might be the case that when more water floods and rushes off the flats more quickly, the fish get skittish of being stranded in a low point when that tide turns so dramatically. They might be hesitant to get up on the flats in the first place. That theory at least applies to the behavior of permit and bonefish, Phil said. The measure of a big tide is how far above, or below, the mean low tide the water level will be. Phil checked his GPS tide chart to find that we still didn’t have much of a tide at the moment, which we could see by the unwavering turtlegrass blades below our boat.

We didn’t see any activity at all before we quit at 1:30. We figured that the prime time would be when a high tide coincided with the afternoon sun to warm the flats and bring the rays searching for food.

In the coming week, we faced new moon astronomical high tides. It might be the story that a moderate high tide, which Thompson and his friends had that day that they did so well, might be the best conditions of all. By the time the next moderate tides came around, two weeks later, the cobia might be gone, off the flats, if temps warmed too much. Given all the variable conditions and our work schedules, we figured we might go after them again next Monday, or Friday, or both days, if necessary.

One week later at the docks Phil signaled to me eagerly with waving arms to get over to him and get going. “The word’s out,” he said. “We’ve got to get there before the other guys do if we’re going to get a position on them,” he said.

A nice little home away from home.

We went to Sea Plane Basin, and then Pearl Basin along the Northwest Channel, and found none. Then we went back to Sea Plane Basin. The cobia had appeared the previous days under these conditions, more or less—warming water, the incoming tide ahead. If it was going to happen for us today, it was going to happen now. We were in four feet of water, a vast expanse of acres of clear water, all beautiful marl bottom, turtlegrass, sponges, and fishless.

A cold front approached us from the north; the air temperature had already dropped from the a.m., clouds moved in, and the water hadn’t really started moving, at all. “They may be higher on this flat,” Phil said. “It’s not a strong moving tide at all, and we may be out of luck because of that. I’m afraid that we’re screwed,” he said. “Yes, we’ve had it.” We quit as a cold front rolled over us.