Normally, this would have been an angling dream, but we were not after kingfish.

"We've gotta go somewhere else," growled Tommy Butler. "These things are stealing all our snapper bait." Fortunately, there were plenty of other places to go-thousands of them, in fact, and there were no other boats in sight. It's like that, when you're fishing The Edge. We were on the lip of Florida's west coast continental shelf, where the 100-mile-wide ledge falls away into the Gulf abyss. We were fishing The Elbow, a jut of rocky peaks and valleys where depths range from 140 to 175 feet before plunging downward into the bottomless open sea.

We didn't have to move far; four miles away, we found another peak where the green and blue masses of bait and bottom fish on Butler's screen practically begged us to make a drop. As soon as the anchor was set-no mean task when you're letting go 500 feet of line-all five of us aboard the 45-foot charterboat had rods bent to the water with heavy fish.

Four of the fish proved to be mangrove snapper from five to eight pounds. The fifth, which happened to be on my rod, took a bit longer to bring up. In fact, it was a bit like cranking a 50-gallon oil drum to the surface. When it was finally within reach of the gaff, it turned out to be a mutton snapper easily over 20 pounds.

We pulled more than 20 snappers from that spot, all on the frozen sardines. When action slowed, we motored less than a quarter mile to another drop and pulled at least 20 more-including two more monster muttons-plus a few AJs, before the kingfish found us. At another spot, yard-long gag grouper inhaled the baits.

On another trip into the same waters, roughly due west of St. Petersburg, with Capt. DuWayne Crofton and his sons Casey and Daren, we found an even more amazing trove: red snapper, in numbers and sizes most anglers have not seen in this part of Florida in 50 years.

The fish showed up here about five years ago, apparently migrating in from the north and west where stocks are still strong. And they've gotten bigger and bigger each year, according to Crofton, who now expects to land fish over 10 pounds on every trip. And the fish are spawning, with plenty of little ones in the water. Whether the fishery will eventually develop 20-pound sows remains to be seen, but with the minimal pressure, it's highly likely.

"The snapper are on some rocks as shallow as 80 feet," says Crofton. "The spots they're on, they just about take over and that's all you catch. But then you go to another rock 300 yards away and there are none there at all-it takes a while to sort out which numbers hold them, but there are plenty of them."

Crofton likes to fish in daylight, but leaves the docks about 4 a.m. to catch baits-threadfins and scaled sardines- around the lntracoastal Waterway bridges of St. Petersburg. The run offshore usually begins before sunup.

The Edge extends for hundreds of miles, roughly from due west of Homosassa all the way to the Dry Tortugas, and just about anywhere along its length offers good bottom fishing, according to Tommy Butler, who has fished most of it.Tommy Butler's custom 45-footer gets anglers offshore safely and quickly. A contentious federal season closure on the recreational red snapper fishery means you can't keep any from November 1 to April 20.

Out here, the baits for most species are not all that critical. Though mangrove snappers inshore are known for being finicky, here they seem to grab anything, live or dead, that comes within reach.On the night trip we used frozen Spanish sardines, and rarely had a refusal. However, those after big gags and black grouper will do best to carry along a supply of large grunts and other big live baits; they're too big for most of the snapper, so survive on bottom long enough for the less aggressive grouper to move in and attack.

Setting the hook with so much line out takes some doing. In fact, the best set, says Butler, is simply to reel as fast as you can until the rod starts to bend. "If you jerk the rod when you feel the bite, you'll miss almost every fish at this depth," Butler said. "You've got maybe 10 feet of slack caused by the current, and you aren't going to jerk that out. So you've got to reel to take up that slack, and many times that's all it takes to put the hook in because the fish will start to dive back to the rocks as you reel.'

Butler offers 60- to 80-pound gear for sportfishermen who charter his boat. "There's no point in going lighter than that for the bottom fishing out here, " he says, "because all you do is break off a lot of fish and that makes the others quit biting." However, there are usually kings, dolphin, blackfin tuna and the occasional wahoo around on top, and for them saltwater spinning tackle or medium baitcasters and 25- to 30-pound-test line can do the job.

Offshore anglers have long noticed that the daytime bite is not particularly good during the full moon periods, and Butler says there's a good reason. "The fish eat like crazy at night on the bright moon," he said. "So they're full by daylight." Butler's solution is simply to go fishing at night during the weeks on either side of the full moon. "It's like a switch; when that moon rises, the fish start to bite. And it's also like a switch when the sun starts to rise; they quit. So I fish at night and sleep in the day during those times." Hooks are 9/0 rigged in tandem for the dead baits. The lower hook goes in just under the dorsal fin, the front hook through the nose. The tail is broken off to prevent the bait from spinning on the way down. Weights vary from one ounce for light currents and yellowtail fishing to 10 ounces for stronger currents.

If a fish bites and doesn't get hooked, the angler simply stops reeling and lets the bait hang; nine times out of ten, if there's still bait on the hook, the snappers will pursue it and strike even more aggressively, hooking themselves.

However, you don't feel the first bite so strongly as you do in shallower water; often it's just a slight bump or even a slow pressure, rather than the sharp taps that telegraph a strike in 40- to 60-foot depths. It requires you to pay careful attention; otherwise, the fish suck the bait away before you even know there's one close.

Not that missing a big fish is a tragedy out here; you can be sure that there are dozens more, eager to take its place on the hook, anytime you fish The Edge

Gearing Up for Big Water

This is big boat country; Tommy Butler runs a custom-built 45-footer that's designed much like an offshore racer, with twin turbocharged diesel outdrives to give him the needed range. And DuWayne Crofton relies on a 27-foot center console with twin 225-horse fuel-injected outboards, again relying on recent technology to give the necessary range.

The rule of using no more than one third of your fuel for the trip Out and fishing time, no more than one third for coming home and at least one third for reserve must be followed here, since unexpected winds and seas can almost double your fuel use on the trip back. It's also no place for inexperienced boaters. Since you're three to five hours from land at best you can expect to have to deal with some bad weather, sooner or later. You need a big, seaworthy boat and the know-how to handle it in rough seas. You need lots of bilge pumps, food and water to last three days to a week, even if you're only making an 8-hour trip, and most importantly, a fully-functional offshore life raft and automatic EPIRB, which will sound the alarm if your boat goes down.

You're far out of range of VHF and cellphones here, so longrange communication is also a must; a single sideband or satellite phone should be part of the program. At least two electronic navigation systems plus a compass are also a must~ getting even a few degrees off course when you re 100 miles from port can mean you come in at Sarasota rather than St. Petersburg. And when fog or clouds obscure the sky you may wind up going to Cancun by accident if you don t have plenty of nay gear Foul weather clothing is also a must as is emergency repair gear including tools and spare parts Any prescription medications should be carried in adequate amounts to last a week, and you'll also need a first-aid kit, including surgical needles and thread to provide stitches, antibiotics and wound-cleaning supplies. Another plus says Crofton is a couple of giant beanbags that can be leaned against the transom. The transom is the best ride in the boat, and the bags let you sit down and give you a foot-thick cushion," says Crofton. "You can actually sleep all the way home if you want to and let the young bucks run the boat" Crofton also recommends going with several other boats all with adequate gear and plenty of range. That way, if one breaks down, the others can offer a tow or perhaps supply the needed repair parts.