fishyfingers

I want to target tilefish etc in 300-600+ feet. I'll be leaving out of Orange Beach and can run 70 miles each way without much concern. For you who've done it can you give me an approximation of the better areas to start?

sniper

I would just head south and after you hit the edge you should start picking up deep water soon. I dont normaly go out that deep but this will atleast bump your post so maybe you can get some more helpful input.

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reel_dedicated

hey fishy is that you from acfa???

Daydreamin

I did this once with a guy down around St. Lucie Inlet. He started at the 800' range and looked for holes or depressions in the bottom. He slowly bumped the bottom with 10lb lead and electric reels on heavy 5' rods.

rauber

we did pretty good 2 weeks ago. went out west of the nipple where all the commercial mingo guys hang out. we drifted the 280-350 feetbreakoff. i used pieces of bobo and my torque 300 so it was a nice workout. got 8 tilefish in 30 minutes

fishyfingers

Yeah ReelD, it's me. I'm here every day but I usually lurk unless I have something to add so low visit/low posts.

fishyfingers

Thanks Rauber, I've been looking that area over on my hiltons atlas lately. I think I'll probably start near there and head south along the shelf slope.

reel_dedicated

man i would love to help you out and i have severallllllll deep drop numbers that i can swing your way.... it just depends if your fishing with electric or manual reels.... when areyou planning on making the trip?? he is our set up...

for water 200-300 ft....

penn 4/0 or 6/0 or tld 20 or tld 25....

at least 300 yrds of 80 lb braid...

at least 16 oz weight... we usually use a 3 way swivel and attach the weight onto the swivel with about 30 or 40 lb mono (this way if the weight gets hung in the rocks/ledge/hole you can usually break it free without loosing everything...

at least 100 lb mono or floro leader (i know floro is expensive but is worth the money for the abrasion resistance)

10/0 to 15/0 circle hook

live pin fish/croaker/ruby red lips/grunt/ and especially hard tails... anything live is good... but whole mullet and skip jack have produced some amazing fish!!

anything over 300 ft of water... you have to go electric or you will be dead tired after 3 drops!!! the main keyis to be comfortable because it makes a long day of fishing... another thing that helps is just to keep the rod in the rod holder and reel up from there.... once you get them up about 100 ft the most of the time will practically die from decompression and its an easy fight from there on... hope this helps.. just pm me and ill send you some great numbers...

reel_dedicated

here is a lil diagram with what we use... since i had several replies about it... maybe the visual will help... forgot to mention your leader needs to be about 5-8' longthis lets the live bait swim around more structure while he is down there...

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fishyfingers

Thanks RD, I hope to get out next week early. I had Kathy at the RodRoom build a rod last year just for Deepdrop. 80# bent butt to the swivel roller tip. I put on a penn 9/0 with a winch handle and 700+ yards of 80# PP. It is meant to stay in the gunnel. I have a few other capable rigs for the job but none others purpose built. I'm going manual in case I catch any record fish. Most of the hook rigs I've built have multiple medium or large circles on them and are 6-12 feet long designed for a long soak. Like you said I use a short trace of lighter line to attach the lead and usually put a cylume stick on top of the rig. I'll let you know when I go.

Thanks,

The fingers