Mid-Atlantic anglers have struck a rich vein with a mother lode of tilefish.

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1 Mid-Atlantic Gold RU Mid-Atlantic anglers have struck a rich vein with a mother lode of tilefish. Text and photos By Lenny Rudow Fishing may be a waiting game, but usually it s not this kind of waiting. With my target species lurking in mud burrows over 850 feet below, just dropping my jig into the target zone seems to take forever. The five-minute mark slides by, then the six, and it isn t until just shy of seven minutes that I finally feel my jig plop down on the seabed. But I can take the wait. It s peanuts compared to how much time I ve invested in locating and catching giant golden tilefish in the mid-atlantic canyons. Unfortunately, I d managed to score only a handful of fish in several seasons. This trip, I hoped, would be different. Armed with a set of numbers that were pried from a retired longline captain (as it turns out, whiskey works quite well as a verbal pry bar), I for once wasn t fishing blind. No one had tried for goldens in this spot for more than 30 years. I pushed the lever drag up to strike, but before I could take in any slack, the darn jig started falling again. Must have been a false alarm wait a sec, was that a head shake? With a reaction time I would have been proud of 20 years ago, I swung my rod skyward. A bulldog tug-tug-tug confirmed the suspicion I had a monster golden tilefish on the end of my line. Within 30 seconds the other three anglers aboard mid-atlantic gold: The large area of mud bottom found off the mid-atlantic states provides plenty of habitat for golden tilefish. Anglers willing to make the deep drops necessary to catch these fish have discovered a veritable gold mine of fishing action providing excellent table fare. were hooked up as well. It was rags-to-riches fishing; after years of prospecting for hot spots, we had finally struck gold. That afternoon ended with four golden tilefish topping 40 pounds and two topping 50 iced down in the fish box. 70 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM MARCH 2011

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3 Stake a Claim The secret to catching giant golden tilefish is simple you need a good spot, and then you just need to keep your bait right on the bottom, says Capt. Ron Callis, captain of the Shelly II, who held the IGFA world record with a 59.6-pound golden until last year (the new mark sits at 63.8 pounds). You ve got to use enough weight to keep it right down there. If your bait gets pulled up at all, you re not going to catch them. Callis is one of very few charter captains who s taken the time to hone his golden tilefish skills, and he s charted each and every golden tilefish caught on his boat. As a result, he s had his hands in dozens of colonies of fish (too bad he doesn t like whiskey). A glance at his charts confirms that these fish cluster close together, and few are caught away from the main concentrations. In fact, most of the colonies inhabit amazingly small areas, often no larger than a football field. You can catch them from 600 feet on down, he says, and I ve pulled them up in water as deep as 844 feet. But if the position of your boat is off even by a little bit when you drop, you probably won t get bites. Though he ll use cut fish or squid, Callis favorite bait is sea clams. They stay on the hook well, and the tilefish seem to really like them, he says. When you get into a colony of tilefish, however, Callis stresses restraint. The big fish take a long time to grow and might be 15 to 35 years old. It s all too easy to fish a spot out. So we stick to a one fish per person limit and try never to take more than six or seven in a single day. Buried Treasure The tough part for most anglers, of course, is finding those hot spots in the first place. Drifting blindly in the proper depth range is one way to do it; prospecting the bottom is another. Cap the end of a 6-inch iron pipe, drag it across the bottom and then check it to see if you re over a sand, shell or mud bottom. Tilefish like the mud, and most giant-golden hunters, Callis included, think tilefish prefer green mud bottom above all others. 72 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM MARCH 2011

4 65- to 80-pound braided line 150-pound barrel swivel work the mud: Tilefish live in colonies on mud bottom, so find the mud and you may find the fish. Some captains think tiles prefer a bottom of green mud. g SWs Tackle box Mid-Atlantic Tilefish Strip bait: bonito/bluefish/ albacore 10/0 to 14/0 circle hook 80-pound mono leader Three-way swivel f 16" g TIlefish can be targeted in one of two ways. The first and most common method is to use multihook meat rigs, which are essentially grouper high-low deepdrop rigs fixed with 10/0 to 14/0 circle hooks and weighed down with 2 to 4 pounds of lead. Hooks can be baited with whole squids, clams, or strips of bonito, bluefish or albacore. Meat rigs tend to catch tilefish of all sizes, as well as a few bycatch species, including black-bellied rosefish, hake and the occasional shark. å f 12" g f 12" g f 16" g Live or frozen squid 10/0 to 14/0 circle hook Three-way swivel 32- to 64-ounce sinker f 12" g The second method for tilefish success is to drop extremely large jigs with treble hooks added to the bottom ring. Giant-golden sharpies will bait the top hook of the jig with a strip of oily fish and the treble with a whole squid laced over the three tines of the hook. For some reason giants over 40 pounds seem particularly attracted to the jig, and it s rare to take tiles under 20 pounds on them. å What about finding golden tiles on the meter? It won t happen, since they re sitting in burrows. You can, however, occasionally mark black-bellied rosefish. These 1- to 3-pound snapperlike fish tend to congregate in the same areas as tilefish and are seen as tiny marks within five or 10 feet of the bottom. Areas they show up in are worth some attention. Will it take you a while to prospect the bottom, try promising areas and locate a gold mine of your own? You bet. But the first time you strike it rich, the energy invested will undoubtedly seem worthwhile and just think of all the money you ll save on whiskey. Rods: Heavy conventional in the 40- to 80-pound class or medium-heavy jigging rods rated for 65- to 80-pound braid. Reels: Conventional reels the higher the gear ratio, the better, since highspeed reels allow you to reel in the fish in less time. 750-gram Shimano Slidend Butterfly jig 10- to 16-ounce Crippled Herring jig Lines: 65- to 80-pound braid. Monofilament is not usable in these depths due to excessive line stretch. Lures and baits: Sea clams; tuna, mackerel, skipjack or bonito chunk baits; or squid. 750-gram Jerk That Jig jigs or similar-size butterfly or diamond jigs. MARCH 2011 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM 73

5 g SWS planner Mid-Atlantic Tilefish Golden tiles live in colonies and don t migrate, so catching one usually means catching many. That explains why such a high value is placed on a good set of numbers, but while this result may be great for an angler who lucks into a hot golden tilefish spot (or knows how to spend his money wisely in a waterfront bar), it doesn t work out too well for the colonies that are discovered by commercial fishermen. Long before recreational anglers ran to the edge of the continental shelf, commercial fishermen were dropping their hooks on tilefish in Baltimore, Poor Mans and Washington canyons. In fact, their harvest dates back to the late 1800s. But it ballooned from 125 metric tons in the 1960s to over 3,200 metric tons in the late 1980s. Golden tilefish were officially declared overfished by the NMFS in 1998, and restrictions went into effect. That s given the colonies time to recover and for individual fish to grow to epic proportions. Up until a few years ago, most mid- Atlantic recreational anglers were not only unaware of goldens, they also couldn t have cared less. Thick schools of yellowfin and bluefin tunas roamed the inshore lumps off the Delmarva Peninsula coast, providing anglers with all the action they could handle. Starting in 2007 and 2008, a few explorative anglers started hitting the docks with tilefish in their coolers. Big tilefish. Record-breakers. The gold rush was on. Current federal regulations are: From the North Carolina- Virginia border north along the East Coast, eight fish per person per trip, no minimum size. However, state regulations differ along Delmarva. Virginia s limit is seven tiles per person per day, and a special recreational permit is required. Maryland s is seven fish per person per day. Delaware does not have any regulations, so abide by the federal regs. What: Golden tilefish; black-bellied rosefish are the most common bycatch. When: Any time of year. When water temperatures drop below 52 degrees, however, spiny dogfish often swarm in the same areas. Dogfish usually take your baits so quickly it s impossible to catch the goldens. Where: Submarine canyon edges and the 74 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM MARCH 2011

6 edge of the continental shelf in the mid- Atlantic region in 600- to 850-foot depths. Golden tilefish are found from New England to Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico, but south of Norfolk Canyon, giants over 40 pounds are exceedingly rare. Who: Few charter boats are experienced at catching giant goldens, but those that have taken the time to learn the drill are reliable. OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND Capt. Ron Callis Shelly II VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA Capt. Jake Hiles Matador alan kikuchi MARCH 2011 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM 75