Tilefishing

[Fish-N-Fool]

Admin did a great job getting you started towards catching tilefish and is right on with his information. I'm not going to duplicate his post but offer this... I often fish with Ron Callis, the current all tackle world record tilefish holder. He has allowed me to share his technique for catching tilefish. I have an article coming out in The Fisherman magazine in about four weeks explaining his technique. Once the article is released I'll post it here for everyone to read. Actually, Ron and I just fished this past Monday and Tuesday for tilefish out of Ocean City. The below photo shows fish from Monday which are 30 years old. As Admin stated, this is a fishery that can be overfished. We normally limit the amount of fish harvested to one per angler. This is not a catch and release species. Once you decide how many fish you are going to be harvest, once that number is reached it is time to go bail dolphin. This photo is of our catch this past Monday. Good luck in your learning and pursuit of tilefish, they are a table delight!

[johnseafood]

Big jay the set up I use is simple as can be. I use 150 lb mono and make 4 dropper loops in the line. On the bottom I make a bigger lopp for a weight or if you have weights with snaps on them you can make them small. I use 10/0 circle hooks and just a whole squid. Thats all you need, i can make 15 of them rigs for what it cost to buy one store bought rig and i'll out fish them everyday.

[cabeebe100]

I like to tie 100lb flourocarbon with 3 or 4 long dropper loops (about 6 - 8 inches long) with one loop at the bottom large enough to accomodate a large sinker. The bottom loop is about 6 inches from the sinker and each loop is about 12 inches from the one below it. If you're worried about hang ups, use 30 lb mono to tie your sinker on so it will break loose if it's fouled. Each dropper loop gets either luminous surgical tubing or a few glow beads before I loop the hook on. I normally use between a 3/0 and 6/0 J hook depending on whether the fish are predominately grey tiles or goldens. If a few large grouper are in the mix, I may go up to a 12/0 circle.

To attach the leader to my braid (80lb suffix) I use a 150lb barrel swivel and attach with uni knots, it does seem to help keep some twist out of your line on such long drops. It's not uncommon for me to attach a lindgren-pitman electalume light near the top of the leader, I've been playing around with it and I do seem to outcatch those onboard without them but I try to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing and if I'm not catching at the right pace I'll change things up.

Regardless of your rig, make certain you're on bottom 100% of the time, let out more line to make contact as needed. If your sinker isn't sticking you're probably in the wrong area. I've seen a lot of guys on open boats not catch because they aren't on bottom and don't want to let more line out to reel back manually. While I have manually dropped for tile, I use an electric now and it does really extend your day. It's one thing to pump a fish up from 800 feet, it's another to check your bait or wind up to move. For bait, these fish don't seem too picky, I've started trying one hook with gulp or something else sturdy to keep at least one bait on the hook if I miss a bite or two and have had some success with it. I figure with four hooks you have the room to experiment a bit.

If you want to release one of these fish, make certain you have a venting tool with you, there are some commercially available ones but if you have friends or family in the medical profession a 16 gauge hypodermic needle will do the trick (you don't need the syringe, just the needle). Insert it about 2 inches behind one of the pectoral fins on the side of the stomach and only insert it deep enough to hear the air release. Don't try to poke their stomach back in if it's protruding through their mouth, they will invert it back in the water if they survive.

[Admin]

Good I just had a flash back.

[Tunaman]

I've been looking all summer on calm days in 2 canyons near my port of oc md as of yet no success. But with good info like yours and mike Avery I will eventually find some. Thanks.