tilefishing

Question
how do you rig up to fish for golden tilefish?

Answer
Hi Steve;

 I am assuming golden tilefish is the same species that I simply call tilefish and live along the edges of the continental shelf and canyons in the 400 to 600 foot depth ranges.  

 Rigging is relatively simple.  These are bottom feeders and your rig is whatever works that brings the bait down to their feeding zone.  A single hook in the 5/0 to 9/0 size range on 3 or 4 feet of heavy leader with a sinker of suitable size is about as basic as it gets.  The problem is the weight of the sinker.  Sometimes you can get away with 10 or 12 ounces, but more often much heavier weight is needed.  I have not done any tilefishing lately, but years ago did so and employed a "release clip" in the terminal end of my line.  This spring activated device was about two inches long with a swivel at both ends and a slot in the middle that was opened or closed by pulling on the swivel at the trailing end.  The leader to the hook was attached to this end and the running line to the other.  A short length of mono with a loop was tied to the sinker.  The slot was opened by pulling on the leader to the hook and the loop from the line to the sinker slipped into the slot.  When the leader to the hook was released, the spring closed the slot and held the sinker in place.  The purpose of this rig was to release the sinker when a fish had taken the bait and was hooked.  This way the fish could be brought in without the added weight of the sinker.  For disposable sinkers we used concrete.  These were prepared in advance.  Empty tin cans of different sizes were filled with wet concrete mix and a scrap of heavy wire twisted to form a loop inserted into the mix before it dried to form a place to attach the line.  Thus we had various weights that would bring our baits to the bottom but would be released when a fish was on.  Though a tile fish may weight 30 pounds or more, since it is made of living matter it has a relatively neutral buoyancy factor.  A 3 pound sinker has no such buoyancy and is much more difficult to bring up than the fish weighing many times that.

 If you can get away with traditional lead sinkers that can be brought up, by all means that is best.  The disposable rig is strictly for circumstances when you have to use sinkers that are so heavy that it is better to just drop them on the bottom than winch them to the surface.  I do not know if these sinker release devices are still on the market, but I am sure something such as an outrigger or downrigger release clip could be employed in situations where very heavy sinkers are needed.   

 Years ago dacron and wire lines were used because of the great depths and the fact that they had far less stretch than mono.  Today's super lines would be the ideal choice for this type of fishing.  Mono is very difficult to deal with.  It has too much stretch and to minimize this, you would have to go to very heavy pound tests which of course then require heavier and heavier sinkers because of the added diameter and increased water resistance.

 The rig is simple.  Getting the rig up and down to the depths where the fish live is the difficult part.  I hope this if of some help.

-Rich