Bottom fishing the Canyons

[Water_boy]

Most of my offshore experience is mostly in the northern canyons from the Hudson and to the north. Up there when things are slow we sometimes catch a few tile fish off the bottom to keep things interesting, anyone have any luck down here? The southern side of the canyons seem to have a mud bottom which is where they like to live, they'll eat just about anything, squid or a butter chunk on a dropper does it.
This weekend it looks like I'll be on an overnighter around the Baltimore or Wilmington Sat/Sun, hopefuly I'll have a report for Monday.

[TommyTuna]

delaware indian river boys target tilefish sucessfully from our canyons, a little further north some world records have recently been set, don't know many out of OC that have tried, no reason it shouldn't work here

[tunafisher]

I hear that you should try between 40 and 50 fathoms. They are there but nobody targets them.

Look at your contour maps and find the mud at the bottom of a steep slope.

I was going to try this summer, but I couldn't bring myself to stop trolling.

Good Luck,

Tuna

[maestro]

There was a guy on the cover of The Fisherman magazine a month ago that caught a real nice one this summer. I thought he was in the Washington, but I could be wrong.

[Mike H]

If I remember correctly, I have seen some pictures of tilefish in the Coastal Fisherman (Ocean City's free fishing publication). I believe that these fish were caught on the Uncle T, an Ocean City charter boat.

Mike

[Water_boy]

Thanks Guys, I might give it a try this weekend.

[fishcop]

there are several boats in oc that occasionally target tile fish. I have always wanted to ry it and still have yet to do it. Only problem with tile fish is they have more mercury than just about any fish.

[cv rider]

I once tried bottom fishing on the tip of the norfolk canyon in about 250' but we didn't catch much, a few sea bass and a couple of small "cod" type fish. not sure what they were but we really didn't try for long. We do bottom fish off hatteras at the rockpile and the 000's with excellent sucess. seabass triggerfish tilefish grouper snapper shark amberjack and usually something exotic or something we don't know what it is. maybe some kind of grunt or snapper. once we even caught a morey eel. I was just today telling my fishing buddy next time we try bottom fishing the rockpile , I want to drift some live eels or some other live bait while bottom fishing. We usually also hook something we can't handle,probably big sharks but maybe big grouper. anyway its a blast and usually we are the only ones fishing that way. everyone else is trolling ballyhoo.