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I walk to the end and bait up with shrimp I bought at the Worldwide Sportsman across U.S. 1 from Cheeca. Looking down, I see a kaleidoscope of small fish, along with a 12-foot nurse shark cruising lazily around the pilings. I cast, and the shrimp flows with the tide for only a few seconds before I feel a sharp rap. I set the hook and shortly bring up an 8-inch light-colored fish with yellow lateral lines, a gray spot two-thirds back, and small, sharp teeth. I take a photo and drop it back into the water. Later that night my reference books will show that species No. 1 is a lane snapper, a common and good-tasting species.

With a dozen more fish, I add three more species—pinfish, margate, and bluestriped grunt—to my list. It’s well after dark now and I’m tempted to keep going, but 50-year-olds on a mission (who’ve been up since 4 A.M.) need their sleep.

The next morning I’m at Robbie’s Marina, a five-minute drive from Cheeca. Robbie’s is the home of the Captain Michael, a 65-foot party boat, as well as rental boats, snorkeling and diving services, and a huge school of giant tarpon that are being hand-fed baitfish by tourists at the end of a dock.

I watch the show until the boat leaves. Our destination, according to Capt. Ron Howell, is a reef 31⁄2 miles from shore on the ocean side, where we’ll go after yellowtail snapper.

The boat can hold 53 people, and we are about half full. We cross under U.S. 1 at the Indian Key Channel Bridge. I marvel at the various hues of the water—azure, turquoise, emerald—that change with depth and bottom composition.

We reach the reef 3 miles out. Howell circles it while mate Marshall Hill puts out chum bags. We anchor and drift our baits into the slick. I’m fishing a squid strip on a 1⁄16-ounce yellow jig. A school of sublegal dolphin—“chickens”—shows up, and one grabs my bait. There are bigger dolphin farther offshore, but on this trip, size doesn’t matter. It’s species No. 5.

The yellowtail show up in the chum slick, their golden tails flashing, but they’re not biting well. “The water’s too clear,” says Howell. “They’re spooky.” Hill has me change to a No. 4 bait hook with a small strip of ballyhoo, a baitfish common to these waters, and I’m quickly on with what will turn out to be my only yellowtail.

From the bridge, Howell eyes my fluorocarbon leader disapprovingly. “Twelve-pound pink Ande mono will outfish fluoro here,” he says. “See that guy?” A customer who has spooled up with the stuff is fast into his seventh fish. But I already have my yellowtail, so I can’t focus on this terrific fishing for one of the most delicately flavored fish in the ocean, anyway. But I’m okay with that. I think.