A hefty mutton snapper heads for the fish box. Note the powerful rod, useful for prying fish form deepwater cover.

We all get a little loony when it comes to mutton snapper fishing. It's well known that the best bite seems to come around the full moon in April and May, when legions of anglers track the lunar cycle like school kids awaiting summer break. Does that make us lunatics? Not really. Just people who know a good fish when it hits the dinner plate.

Mutton was on the menu for Dan Embon when he rushed for the deep rod and seized it from the holder on a wreck off Haulover Inlet. Just the slightest bump hinted that something was pestering the live pilchard 100 feet beneath the surface, but a loud hoot across the boat from Dan's friend Bob Hassell instigated a rapid sequence of events.

The fish didn't show an ounce of fight until Dan wound up the slack on the 25-foot leader. Suddenly, in typical snapper style, the fish charged back for the wreck."Wind, wind, wind!" yelled Capt. Dennis Forgione. The brief tussle ended when Forgione lifted a bright pink snapper over the gunnel. It wasn't a large fish, as muttons go, but it was a nice addition to a several fat kingfish and Spanish mackerel we'd stashed in the cooler over the course of a busy morning.

Dan's fish, an early-season surprise, didn't come from some secret spot known only to a closed-book cadre of insiders. In fact, Forgione's Dusky Free Spool was anchored over one of many publicly funded reefs off the Dade and Broward coastline.

In the wake of a ban on fish traps, mutton snapper are visiting these reefs in greater numbers, and it's a sure bet the habitat has encouraged population growth of the hard-fighting, great-tasting snappers.

Loran and GPS coordinates for the sites are easy to obtain, and consequently invite a lot of fishing pressure. But muttons move around more than other members of the snapper clan, cruising over nearshore coral patches in winter and lumbering off to deeper wrecks in 80 to 200 feet of water as the water warms. Consequently, a wreck that was vacant one week could have a pile of snapper the next. "I like to dive some of the wrecks to see how the fish are lying on the structure," Forgione said while we waited for another bite. His theory is that muttons congregate around the wrecks as part of spawning behavior. Whatever the case, congregate they do.

"I've seen 'em stacked on top of each other," he added. "Sometimes they're on the upcurrent side, sometimes downcurrent, but they're always in the sand around the wreck. On days when there's less current, they seem to be more scattered."

The drill when fishing public wrecks is to locate a potential site with loran or GPS, circle it a few times and observe the depthfinder. Are there fish holding around the wreck? Which side are they on? Is there a cloud of baitfish hovering over the site? Make a mental inventory of the visible details, then turn your attention to the wind and current, as these factors will play an important role in your next course of action--anchoring.

Anchoring in deep water requires some planning. First off, you'll need enough line to allow yourself scope to properly set the hook. The generally accepted formula is at least three feet of line for one foot of depth, so between four and six hundred feet should be adequate. This doesn't mean you'll need to deploy that much line--it's just a reference point. Extra chain lets you get away with shorter line; Forgione, for example, uses 15 feet of chain to anchor his 25-foot center console. After pinpointing the wreck, move well upcurrent before dropping anchor. How far you move depends largely on how fast the current is flowing, and it may require a couple of tries to position yourself where you want to be. Repeated attempts can be reduced when you use some form of marker buoy, and many anglers now use a GPS unit as an electronic marker. Once you've made a positive ID on the depthfinder, program an exact waypoint for the wreck, then cut the engines and drift with the current. In a minute or so, hit GOTO and the unit will tell you what heading you'll need to recover the position. Now simply return to the waypoint and maintain the heading upcurrent or upwind before anchoring. If it's not right, at least you have a reference point to work around.

The current will also figure into your angling strategy. In deep, swift water, frozen block chum has little affect on fish that are hanging 100 feet beneath the boat. A handful of cutbait such as herring or bonito upcurrent every so often will get their attention, but some veterans believe excessive chumming will turn off the bite. Your most important chore, however, is to get a bait to the fish--which, if they're down there, should eat regardless of how much greasy gunk you slop into the water.

One particularly useful bottom rig for this type of fishing consists of a brass three-way swivel and a 12-inch monofilament dropper ending in a surgeon's loop. By threading egg sinkers onto the dropper and looping a bank sinker to the end, you've created an easily adjustable weight. Another approach is to employ a sliding egg sinker that rides on the running line above a swivel, the standard fishfinder rig. With this one, though, you have to rerig to adjust the weight.

It might sound a little excessive, but fishing at anchor over a wreck in 100 feet of water with a 2- to 4-knot current can require over a pound of lead. Anglers who work broad areas of natural reef often drift, which allows them to get away with much less weight, but we're talking here about fishing a small spot directly beneath a boat at rest--which means you'll need to gear up to compensate for the current. For best results, you want your bait pinned securely to the sandy bottom around the wreck.

To the business end of the swivel, tie a long--up to 30 feet--40- to 60-pound mono leader ending in a sturdy, offset, shortshank livebait hook in the 6/0 range. To make things really foolproof, tie a Bimini twist or spider hitch in your main line before you fasten it to the swivel.

Thirty-pound conventional tackle with a stout rod is ideal for hoisting big fish away from the structure, and you'll obviously need some backbone to handle a string of heavy sinkers in the current. During other times of the year you can get away with lighter gear over shallow wrecks and reefs. This past winter found loads of smaller muttons in the finger channels and on the patch reefs south of Key Biscayne, and some of those fish no doubt are still there. They fall for just about any bait, live or dead, are tough customers on 8- or 12-pound spinning gear, but they're puny compared to the big guys that move onto the wrecks in the spring. To give you an idea of the potential for truly bodacious mutton snapper, Forgione's biggest last year was 23 pounds. He also bagged a 22- and two 21-pounders.

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