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The Twilight Zone
Closeup of tilefish shows they have big eyes, suitable for living in dark waters far below the surface.
There is a dimension offshore beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension of shadows and darkness, between science and superstition, between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone. Thank you, Rod Serling.
We have this huge area off the Texas coast, seldom glimpsed by man except small patches by high-tech submersible. Lots of fish species down there, strange ones living in twilight or darkness, almost all of them tasty, lightly impacted and regulated, completely without seasons, in fact. There are grouper, snapper, tilefish and other critters out there that most anglers have never heard of, much less seen.
It's true that catching them requires more work, reeling up fish that average a fifth of a mile down. There's no catch-and-release, since the water pressure difference is immense, the fish disabled after coming up several hundred feet and way before the surface. For some reason, almost of these deepwater species are tasty.
Hard work, but more rewarding with today's technology, where you can actually see fish on the bottom recorder, before dropping baits. One no longer has to drop baits in a general area and hope for the best.
"I keep a depth finder going all the time out there," says Capt. Jeff Gerrans, who often fishes deep water with his 32-foot World Cat charterboat out of Matagorda, on the Colorado River. "I also have a good bathymetric chart. I can see fish in 2,000 feet, if you dial it in just right. It really opens up a new world, when you can see what you're targeting in deep water. The old days are over, not knowing the fish are there before you drop (baits). The current can be a factor but we calculate that, before dropping. And which way an underwater ridge runs. It isn't difficult."
"Generally, I fish two directions out of Matagorda," says Jeff. "The Breaks (off Port O'Connor) has Warsaw and yellowedge grouper, and smaller tilefish. Better action is towards the Hilltops further east. Deep-drop guys used to fish in 700 to 900 feet, but the bigger fish are in deeper water. Find a new spot, and the fish are all over it. Barrelfish are on the newer spots, mixed with tiles. They look like a big shiner and really ugly, but they're good to eat, the meat more firm than tile. The tasty yellowedge grouper are more shallow, 600-900 feet and snowy grouper in 700-900 feet."
Drop baits that deep, and you want the right leader, hooks and bait, because it takes time to retrieve it. You may come up with three kinds of big fish on one leader.
"I have a weight on each end of the leader, 6 pounds on bottom and 2 pounds on top," says Jeff. "And a light at each end. I make my own leaders, 12 feet long. With short drops, so they don't get tangled. A stick of lead on the bottom, with wire through the lead instead of tied. If I get snagged, the wire cuts through the lead and I get my leader back. I use 500-pound mono for the main leader, with 200-pound drops that will break first, if they snag a rock.
"My favorite bait is blackfin tuna or bonito. When it hits bottom, they're all over it. A lot of times we tuna fish at night, and there are plenty of blackfins for fresh bait. I save them in the freezer too, the tilefish don't care. A lot of bait shops sell bonito, too. "Sometimes we send down a smorgrasbord with tuna and squid. I like a fist-size bait because a big tile has a big mouth. A lot of anglers don't fish deep enough with big enough bait. Three months ago we made a tuna trip and while out there I told my son, 'You want to catch a state record tilefish on manual [non-electric] tackle? I know where we can get one. He said, 'That deep? No way.' So we made two drops with electric gear, big baits, and brought up four rod-and-reel, state record tiles if he'd just cranked them up manually. All 30-plus pounders."
Last time I checked, fish caught on electric reels counted in the state's unrestricted records, which include spearguns and trotlines.
On the other end of the sporting scale, they've been catching deepwater fish in Florida on seven-foot jigging rods. Pack 30-pound braid on a small reel, lower down a six or nine-ounce metal jig, and get busy jigging. Since braid won't stretch, getting a strike feels the same at 80 feet as 800. It's a long pull back to the boat, but way more sporty than electrics. The fish are slowly crippled by the bends, which is internal gas doubling in volume every 33 feet, and after rising for 200 feet or so, they're usually quite buoyant. During the last few dozen feet, a grouper will surface abruptly in any direction like a buoy, sometimes 30 feet on the wrong side of the boat. If the hook drops out, you can always drive over and lip-gaff it. If you're using heavy leader as recommended on the bigger rods, there isn't much need to gaff the fish at all, just drag it onboard. It's a waste of good meat gaffing these fish in the side; they aren't going anywhere.
"With all the restrictions on inshore bottom fish, you have to improvise today," says Jeff. "If we want to bring fish home, there is a big variety out there."
It's definitely worth a try: deepwater tackle and techniques have modernized a great deal in the past 20 years, and anglers are looking beyond the overly-managed and bitterly-contested bottom fish found closer inshore (re: red snapper and once more numerous Warsaw grouper).
Deepwater Species Equals More Records
The really deepwater records began to fall when the big, center console go-fast boats arrived off the coast, often targeting tuna, boats that could sprint way offshore very quickly on calm days, and even days not so calm. They were interested in a bigger variety of fish than the bigger, slower billfish boats of old, and they employed all sorts of modern-day equipment. Big tilefish began to hit the docks, along with other species that prowl the darkness in 1,000 feet.
Early Deepwater Fishing off Texas
One trip we had eight or nine species not listed with TPW, such as red hind, yellowfin grouper, marbled grouper, horseye and black jack, sand and golden tilefish, also a graysby grouper. All but the golden tile were in about 180-200 feet of waterdeeper coral residents that, today, pose a risk of ciguatera poisoning, especially around the Flower Gardens. We also caught an entire basket of choice scamp grouper of around eight poundsI'd only seen one of those on the deck of a partyboat in a dozen years. Only the yellowfin grouper and golden tile were claimed as state records; our crew couldn't be bothered with more paperwork. The red hind caught at night at the Flower Gardens was quite rare in Texas waters and might have stood the test of time as a state record.
We have this huge area off the Texas coast, seldom glimpsed by man except small patches by high-tech submersible. Lots of fish species down there, strange ones living in twilight or darkness, almost all of them tasty, lightly impacted and regulated, completely without seasons, in fact. There are grouper, snapper, tilefish and other critters out there that most anglers have never heard of, much less seen.
It's true that catching them requires more work, reeling up fish that average a fifth of a mile down. There's no catch-and-release, since the water pressure difference is immense, the fish disabled after coming up several hundred feet and way before the surface. For some reason, almost of these deepwater species are tasty.
Hard work, but more rewarding with today's technology, where you can actually see fish on the bottom recorder, before dropping baits. One no longer has to drop baits in a general area and hope for the best.
"I keep a depth finder going all the time out there," says Capt. Jeff Gerrans, who often fishes deep water with his 32-foot World Cat charterboat out of Matagorda, on the Colorado River. "I also have a good bathymetric chart. I can see fish in 2,000 feet, if you dial it in just right. It really opens up a new world, when you can see what you're targeting in deep water. The old days are over, not knowing the fish are there before you drop (baits). The current can be a factor but we calculate that, before dropping. And which way an underwater ridge runs. It isn't difficult."
"Generally, I fish two directions out of Matagorda," says Jeff. "The Breaks (off Port O'Connor) has Warsaw and yellowedge grouper, and smaller tilefish. Better action is towards the Hilltops further east. Deep-drop guys used to fish in 700 to 900 feet, but the bigger fish are in deeper water. Find a new spot, and the fish are all over it. Barrelfish are on the newer spots, mixed with tiles. They look like a big shiner and really ugly, but they're good to eat, the meat more firm than tile. The tasty yellowedge grouper are more shallow, 600-900 feet and snowy grouper in 700-900 feet."
Drop baits that deep, and you want the right leader, hooks and bait, because it takes time to retrieve it. You may come up with three kinds of big fish on one leader.
"I have a weight on each end of the leader, 6 pounds on bottom and 2 pounds on top," says Jeff. "And a light at each end. I make my own leaders, 12 feet long. With short drops, so they don't get tangled. A stick of lead on the bottom, with wire through the lead instead of tied. If I get snagged, the wire cuts through the lead and I get my leader back. I use 500-pound mono for the main leader, with 200-pound drops that will break first, if they snag a rock.
"My favorite bait is blackfin tuna or bonito. When it hits bottom, they're all over it. A lot of times we tuna fish at night, and there are plenty of blackfins for fresh bait. I save them in the freezer too, the tilefish don't care. A lot of bait shops sell bonito, too. "Sometimes we send down a smorgrasbord with tuna and squid. I like a fist-size bait because a big tile has a big mouth. A lot of anglers don't fish deep enough with big enough bait. Three months ago we made a tuna trip and while out there I told my son, 'You want to catch a state record tilefish on manual [non-electric] tackle? I know where we can get one. He said, 'That deep? No way.' So we made two drops with electric gear, big baits, and brought up four rod-and-reel, state record tiles if he'd just cranked them up manually. All 30-plus pounders."
Last time I checked, fish caught on electric reels counted in the state's unrestricted records, which include spearguns and trotlines.
On the other end of the sporting scale, they've been catching deepwater fish in Florida on seven-foot jigging rods. Pack 30-pound braid on a small reel, lower down a six or nine-ounce metal jig, and get busy jigging. Since braid won't stretch, getting a strike feels the same at 80 feet as 800. It's a long pull back to the boat, but way more sporty than electrics. The fish are slowly crippled by the bends, which is internal gas doubling in volume every 33 feet, and after rising for 200 feet or so, they're usually quite buoyant. During the last few dozen feet, a grouper will surface abruptly in any direction like a buoy, sometimes 30 feet on the wrong side of the boat. If the hook drops out, you can always drive over and lip-gaff it. If you're using heavy leader as recommended on the bigger rods, there isn't much need to gaff the fish at all, just drag it onboard. It's a waste of good meat gaffing these fish in the side; they aren't going anywhere.
"With all the restrictions on inshore bottom fish, you have to improvise today," says Jeff. "If we want to bring fish home, there is a big variety out there."
It's definitely worth a try: deepwater tackle and techniques have modernized a great deal in the past 20 years, and anglers are looking beyond the overly-managed and bitterly-contested bottom fish found closer inshore (re: red snapper and once more numerous Warsaw grouper).
Deepwater Species Equals More Records
Thirty years ago, the only Texas boats reaching water deep enough for tilefish and deepwater grouper were billfish boats. They were hunting bluewater pelagic fish and couldn't be bothered. Our ventures off Sabine Pass in those days, wandering around up to 150 miles offshore–well, we had the place to ourselves, never sighting another fishing boat. I wrote about some of our early trips, and the many new species we found, and interest by the public began to rise. A guy name Adolph Shultz, who owned a bait camp in Galveston, went after new records with a vengeance, and the list of Texas saltwater records grew fast. He bagged all sorts of Gulf critters, even flyingfish.
The really deepwater records began to fall when the big, center console go-fast boats arrived off the coast, often targeting tuna, boats that could sprint way offshore very quickly on calm days, and even days not so calm. They were interested in a bigger variety of fish than the bigger, slower billfish boats of old, and they employed all sorts of modern-day equipment. Big tilefish began to hit the docks, along with other species that prowl the darkness in 1,000 feet.
Early Deepwater Fishing off Texas
I once owned the Texas record tilefish for many years, while getting exposed to many new deepwater bottom species starting back in 1982. Capt. Pete Hebert owned a slow, single diesel Lafitte skiff called the Hannibal in Port Arthur, and late each summer we'd make a five-day trip way offshore. A trip like that, sleeping on Igloos or on deck under the stars, felt like a month out there. We carried no electric tackle, just regular snapper and trolling gear and also a bicycle "bandit" rig that could be attached to the gunnel. It carried 300-pound mono, a few big circle hooks and a sash weight. One glassy afternoon after trolling for billfish, we stopped in 1,100 feet of water south of the Flower Gardens and I dropped five baits deep on circle hooks. Baited with chunks of blackfin tuna. With our graphite bottom recorder we knew the bottom was sloping, and also the depth, but that was all. After a short wait, I cranked for a long time. In the blue meridian below, we spotted color and bubbles. It was four tilefish, soon dragged aboard in triumph. Another drop produced nothing, which was tiresome, and so we cruised off. The biggest tile weighed 21 pounds, soon documented with T&PW and then cooked back in Beaumont. The meat was white and lumpy like lobster, very good.
One trip we had eight or nine species not listed with TPW, such as red hind, yellowfin grouper, marbled grouper, horseye and black jack, sand and golden tilefish, also a graysby grouper. All but the golden tile were in about 180-200 feet of waterdeeper coral residents that, today, pose a risk of ciguatera poisoning, especially around the Flower Gardens. We also caught an entire basket of choice scamp grouper of around eight poundsI'd only seen one of those on the deck of a partyboat in a dozen years. Only the yellowfin grouper and golden tile were claimed as state records; our crew couldn't be bothered with more paperwork. The red hind caught at night at the Flower Gardens was quite rare in Texas waters and might have stood the test of time as a state record.