Tricky, but worth the effort.

Okay, this was getting frustrating. Catching yellowtail snapper was proving to be tricky, compared with countless red snapper I’ve dragged from the depths in the past 30 years. On a whim I’d jumped on the partyboat Miss Islamorada out of Bud N’ Mary’s in December, instead of heading back to Miami a day early. We spent the entire day anchored in 90 feet of water in gorgeous weather, which was nice. But Jemus H. Croakus; the old-timers on the stern were stacking up the yellowtails, while my bait went ignored.

Soon enough the fishbox began to fill; our deckhand Ben Loy was busier than a one-armed drummer, marking every fish and icing them.

These guys had to be near their limits, all nice fish that never required measuring. Somehow I still didn’t have a yellowtail on the boat...I’d dallied instead with an abundant supply of schoolie kingfish, flipping them live cigar minnows with the boat’s 30-pound spin gear, which was fun for hours. Now it was time to make hay, so to speak, before we pulled anchor.

There were problems: The new 15-pound line on my personal spin outfit had caught only a few bonito. The yellowtails were ignoring it, though still smacking the deck only a few feet away, courtesy of the pros. The little hook-and-sliding egg weight combo just wasn’t doing the job, even with a strip of ballyhoo bait cut exactly like they were using. A red snapper would never make these fine distinctions, not in a million years—but then, I was no longer on the northern Gulf.

The stern position is coveted for yellowtail fishing, and weekends like this are more crowded. Weekday trips offer twice the deck space, and that's when the old-timers show up to really whack these fish.

So, for about the third time ever, I asked and then borrowed what the other guys were using. It was a small, fluorescent yellow jighead, tipped with a small strip of ballyhoo. The guys carried these jigheads in a small plastic box not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Matching jig weight with the current is important, and on this day with calm conditions and a barely moving current, my questing, bait-covered fingers eased a 1⁄16-ounce head from the little box.

By then I had switched to a reel from the duffle bag rigged with correct 10-pound line. But there was more to learn. Dropping the jig over the side whenever convenient wasn’t going to catch much either. The pros on the stern had it down to a science. Here’s what they were doing:

Our vessel kept two chumbags over the side, but the fish never rose higher in the water column this day than about 60 feet. (Perhaps they weren’t that hungry, or the water too calm). So, these wise guys were balling up a mix of sand and oats, which the boat provided in ample supply. Add a little water, firm up the mix, dig a hole in the sandball and hide the jig and bait inside, cover it up and pack it tight. After that, flip the bail on the spinning reel and make at least 15 wraps of your line around the ball, in all directions, like a ball of sandy yarn. The darn thing by then looked like it would bounce off someone’s head, if you threw it.

Schoolie kingfish are fairly dependable here during winter. Best eating size, too.

Instead you drop the sandball over the side, where it plummets down a long way, your spin reel flipping line out rapidly. This line deployment is aided by a wet hand (recently cleaned by slapping in a bucket of seawater), to facilitate a smooth drop.

Even that wasn’t enough. You had to time the sandball toss just right, as the anchored boat began a swing away from your side of the boat. If not, the vertical comet of unraveling sand and chum, and perhaps your line, would disappear under the boat, perchance to tangle in the rudder or other lines. Timed right, the entire sandy streak drifted 10 to 20 feet off to your side, whether starboard or port, leaving plenty of room for a hookup. The boat’s pendulum anchor swing (in 90 feet of water) seemed to last about four minutes but was probably less.

The sandball disintegrated at 50, perhaps even 60 feet down. From then on, you had to pull more wraps off the reel in a stealthy manner, allowing the jig to sink even more, but in a controlled and slow fashion similar to chum. There was no yanking on the rodtip to pull line off the reel; that only alerts the fish. Give that jig a false jiggle and yellowtails know perfectly well that, “something ain’t right in the state of Denver,” as Archie Bunker used to say.