Forget about ice fishing today.

The outside thermometer is pegged at zero, for gosh sake. That stiff north wind coming down the lake will make conditions brutal. Sure, it may be cozy in the fishing shack, but what fool wants to stick his bare hand into a bait bucket in weather like this?

Thatta boy.

Shut off the truck. Back in the house. Another chunk of beech in the kitchen stove. Reheat the coffee. Now you’re thinking.

Kick back. Close your eyes. Come with me today – right this minute – to the Florida Keys.

Daylight is breaking through the mist. Dave Wilson is at the helm of his 24-foot Mako. You are holding on to the console rail on one side. I’m on the other. The big Yamaha four-stroke is purring along nicely, and we’re making 20 knots against a slight chop being worked up by an east wind. The seaward horizon is almost a conflagration, fired by a fast-rising crimson sun. The ocean breeze is “unseasonably cool” – 67 degrees. Key Largo is, as the country song says, “in the rear view mirror.” Our destination? Out beyond Molasses Reef on the edge of the blue water, where the sailfish, from all reports, have been chasing herring and Ballyhoo for the good part of a week.

“Got your sea legs?” Dave asks. He backs off on the throttle some as the boat pounds hard into the building chop and the warm salt spray windrows across the portside.

Moments later, the GPS tells us that we are, as we used to say in the U.S. Navy, “on station.” Dave kills the engine. He asks me to drop the “hook” (the anchor). Out come the chum bags and the cast net. The chum bags will attract the sailfish’s baitfish du jour, which today is Ballyhoo, or what the natives call simply “hoo.” In no time, “the hoo is here,” says Dave excitedly. You can see the schools of Ballyhoo just astern. Dave drapes his 8-foot, weighted cast net across his shoulders and holds part of it with his teeth. He looks like a slickered dancer about to untwirl.

At the critical moment, he hurls the heavy cast net and it unfurls perfectly forming a circular trap for the darting baitfish. A few repeat performances with the unwieldy cast net and we have our bait: “two dozen hoo’ in the hole,” exclaims Dave. “Let’s go hook us a sailfish.”

The fishing technique is simple enough.

He is using big sticks, heavy-duty rods with large conventional saltwater reels, loaded with 20-to-30 pound test mono. A sinker the size of a walnut, a wire leader, and a big hook rounds out the package. The bait, which is the Ballyhoo, is about 10 inches long, is simply hooked on just like trolling a Jack smelt at Moosehead Lake in late May.

You are in luck! Guide Dave has tapped you to be up first. I get to man the helm and keep the trolling boat on course. You don a fighting belt and Dave strips off some line and hands you the rod with a few instructions. We are dragging two lines astern, each separated by outriggers with quick-release mechanisms that keep the line up high and away from the boat.

“Look, look,” shouts Dave, pointing to schools of baitfish that are flying out of the water about 50 yards abeam. (The baitfish are being chased by bigger fish, which is a hopeful omen.)

Not much happens for about a half hour. Dave has a way of making you feel at home board his boat. A relaxed guy whose love of the water and fishing oozes from his pores, he works as a financial planner in Key Largo. He is also a gifted writer, who has written some novels and a number of outdoor articles. Just as Dave is about to share his view on Large Cap Stocks, something more down to earth occurs about 200 yards astern: a bird sighting.

Jumping up, Dave is stabbing his finger in the air. He is as excited as kid at the circus. Two large black birds are hovering about 30 feet above the sea not a hundred yards from us. “Those are Frigatebirds, explains Dave, “and where there are these dudes, there are game fish!”

Sure enough, right on cue, your rod is bending and the reel is singing its sweetest song. “Set him, NOW,” instructs Skipper Dave. You do as your told. Then, a ways behind the boat, a big fish explodes and tail walks for a second across the ocean chop.

“Fish on!” somebody yells. We all look at the bending rod tip, and then at each other. There are big smiles all around.

“Not a sail, a dolphin,” advises Dave. But what do you care? The fish is big, it’s fighting for its life, and it, assures Capt’n Dave, will eat real good. Besides, conditions are anything but brutal. No cold toes or frozen fingers. The sun is warm and shimmering off the sea like an Aqua Velva commercial. There are cold drinks and Subway subs in the cooler. You’re not seasick. The company is good, and there is still a half day’s fishing left.

With one quick swipe of the gaff, Dave brings our 8-pound dolphin aboard.

“OK, mates, we’ve got supper,” he says dropping your catch into the fish box, “now let’s get us a sailfish.” He rigs another “hoo” on the big hook, snaps the line onto the outrigger release, and drops the bait astern.

As your line unspools, a Frigatebird reappears, hovering a few hundred yards behind the boat wake. You get ready.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].