Night fishing proves to be ideal

Bottom-fishing in the Keys can be hard to beat.
By SUSAN COCKING
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- With the passage of Katrina and resumption of sizzling daytime weather, there is no better time than now to go night fishing in South Florida.
Storms tend to stir up the ocean floor and, coupled with rising barometric pressure, trigger grouper and snapper to feed enthusiastically.
It is hard to beat the bottom-fishing in the Keys, and the Captain Michael, out of Islamorada's Holiday Isle Marina, is a quality, economical choice at about $35 for a five-hour night trip.
After limit catches of mangrove snapper during the full moons of June and July, the Captain Michael concentrates on yellowtails, vermilions, muttons and groupers.
According to captain Brian McCadie, the best bite is on wrecks and reefs in 85 to 125 feet of water. The main factor is current. Without it, the bite is slow. With it, McCadie says, "we pound on them."
There was only a mild, trickling current in three out of four spots 90 to 100 feet deep where the Captain Michael fished during the evening Aug. 23. Still, anglers using 1/16-ounce Hank Brown Hookup jigs tipped with cut bait managed a few fat yellowtail up to 4 pounds.
Those fishing on the bottom with chicken rigs (a weighted mainline with double hooks on spur lines) got some lane and mangrove snappers.
What was tried
McCadie and mate Tom Sterger deployed double chum bags and scattered handfuls of oats into the slick. But the uncooperative current, which carried fishing lines underneath the boat, suppressed the catching.
The lackluster bite was enlivened by two huge nurse sharks that ate bottom baits. Mike Bloch of Sunrise and Rick Alford, co-owner of Anglers Bait & amp; Tackle in Dania Beach, each caught and released a nurse shark more than 8 feet long.
To fight the huge sharks, they had to alternate between standing and reeling and kneeling down on the deck to get leverage with the rod over the boat's railings. The crew never even considered hauling either shark on board. All photos were taken with the shark in the water.
McCadie is never happy unless his anglers are happy. So, despite the lateness of the hour, he decided to relocate to a wreck in 187 feet of water. Fortunately, the Captain Michael's twin turbocharged diesels are faster than most party boats' engines, averaging 16 knots.
The crew quickly deployed the anchor, and the anxious anglers dropped their lines, knowing this would be the last drop of the night.
Better site
The fishing wasn't red hot, but it was vastly improved from the shallower areas. Anglers caught smaller yellowtail, but they reeled in legal-size mangroves, vermilions and lanes.
The boat provided a wide variety of cut baits -- squid, bonito strips, bally hoo, speedo, threadfin herring and tinker mackerel. A couple of anglers caught goggle eyes on their chicken rigs, then made plugs out of the baits and sent them back down.
By the time McCadie started the engines to head home, everybody on board had caught something.
Brett Swain of Layton, Fla., has been fishing on the Captain Michael once or twice a week for about two years.
"I like my yellowtail fishing and my mutton fishing," Swain said. "I'm addicted to it. That's why I live in the Keys."
He said he chooses the Captain Michael for "the consistency of the catch and the quality. Some boats are 'drunk boats' -- unfortunately, tourist boats."