The past three years we have said we are going to tile fish in on of the canyons after an overnight trip. We come out of Great Egg Inlet in Ocean City NJ and i think we have the rods to deep drop for tiles, but what type of rigs should i use to get down there and what kind of hooks and bait?
We use 80 lb mono on a leder with 2 or 3 dropper loops, we use 7/0-8/0 gamakatsu octopus hooks on each loop as well as 1 or 2 glow beeds on each hook. Space the hooks atleast a ft apart, and then tie an overhand knot at the bottom to form a bigger loop to slide the weight onto. At the top I tie a barrel swivel to keep it from tangling, total rig length when ties is maybe 5 ft. We use whole squid, washed out ballyhoo, or smaller bait fish whole as well as bigger bait fish chunked or filled. We have been playing around with circle hooks using an 8/0 octopus circle, sometimes makes it easier to just reel tight in those depths, quicker to set the hook and get slack and stretch out we are finding. Tilefish are selective on depth so drift an area that is knwon for tiles as well as where there is a gradual slope and find what depth they perfer that time of season, they can only live in a variable of maybe 2 degree water so they will all congregate along that depth once you find them so then you will know where to stay and fish, or when the drift is over. We use jig rods, trevala's with Avet HXW reels with hollowcore braid, nice light setup with plenty of line to reach the bottom. A 30N or a 20 would be a decent reel too that you might already own. I would highly advise using braid over mono because of the stretch it makes a big difference we have found in the hook up ratio.
Here are some pictures of my basic rig. The one I happen to pull out had the hooks a little closer then typical for fishing smaller baits, as I stated above, I like the hooks typically a ft apart, but if the fish are smaller I'll use smaller baits and closer hook spread to get the baits close to the bottom.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
