Anchored near a grassy cut dotted with coral heads in south Biscayne Bay, I couldn't believe my eyes. Every time captain Jay Jawitz tossed out a handful of small pilchards, a boil erupted on the smooth surface, followed by the somersault of a large, pink tail.

Jawitz cast a light spinning outfit baited with a pilchard to a spot just behind where the tail disappeared, and was rewarded with a sharply bent rod and squealing drag. Ten minutes later, he reeled up a 5-pound mutton snapper.

Jawitz, a Hollywood light-tackle guide, has been delighting customers with the highly visual surface antics of mutton snapper and yellow jacks in the bay for several months. The action is fierce and constant, and the results are table-worthy.

Virtually everyone who eats fish loves mutton snapper. But yellow jack also is tasty dinner fare -- unlike its cousins, the bar jack, jack crevalle and amberjack. Jawitz has found some spots in the bay where he can almost guarantee enough fillets for a meal -- if only he can circumvent toothy, pesky houndfish, shark and barracuda.

``There are so many spots from Key Biscayne south where there's just tons of fish,'' he said. ``It's just a matter of the correct structure. You have to have current and grass next to structure.''

LIVE BAIT BEST

You also have to be armed with plenty of live pilchards. Jawitz said that's the best way to chum up the desired species without getting overwhelmed by barracudas and sharks.

``If people don't have the bait, they won't be successful,'' he said. ``I used to put out dead bait, but it attracted too many sharks.''

But no matter what you do, you still get slammed by plenty of houndfish -- a long, toothy, silver species with a sharp bill that hangs around with the snapper and jacks. To minimize the houndfish kibitzing, Jawitz throws out handfuls of chum and waits for the telltale boil and pink tail slap before tossing out a bait.

On a recent weekday, Jawitz and I enjoyed steady action on both the incoming and outgoing tides in waters eight to 15 feet deep. We caught four legal-sized mutton snapper on the incoming tide and five yellow jacks on falling water in another spot.

Surprisingly, the jacks were harder to hook than the muttons. We had to skitter the pilchards along the surface or throw out a bait in the middle of a cloud of chum in order to get them to bite.

``Yellow jacks are attracted to drama,'' Jawitz said. ``They can be as aggressive or as finicky as they can be. Yellow jacks eat pinfish and pilchards. They don't seem to like dead bait. Sometimes, anchored on a wreck, I've pulled my anchor up and had 100 yellow jacks chasing it. They follow other fish. They're bullies, in a nutshell.''

NOTHING ARTIFICIAL

Jawitz said he never has had much luck using artificial lures. However, one of his customers caught a legal-sized mutton snapper on fly rod using a chartreuse-and-white Clouser minnow.

Watching one pink tail after another burst to the surface of the bay, I wondered why flats anglers don't catch many muttons on the flats immediately adjacent.

``With that many creeks and finger channels, [muttons] have better structure and safety than they do on the flats,'' Jawitz said. ``I think muttons get what they need in deeper water. I think muttons sit in a certain area until something moves them off. They have such a variety of diet. If there's no pilchards or bally hoo, they'll eat crustaceans.''

Jawitz said he expects the mutton-jack show to continue for another few months until bay waters grow too cool and send the fish out to reefs and wrecks in deeper, warmer waters.

``Last year wasn't the greatest because it was cold,'' Jawitz said. ``If you have a warm winter, fish are in here.''

To book a light-tackle charter with captain Jay Jawitz, call 305-794-3405 or visit sf-fishingadventures.com.

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