There are lots of delicious fish to be had at the bottom of the abyss, where few anglers dare to tread.
Many people fish — or at least profess to fish — just for the thrill of feeling the raw piscatorial power throbbing through the line.
Deep-drop fishing is not for them.
And for anyone who’s had to take a 10-minute break after bringing in a 5-pound red snapper from 230 feet down, the prospect of reeling in a fish from five times that depth is absurd.
I often wondered why it was mostly older gentlemen who preferred electric reels for hoisting loads of white trout and red snapper (back when there were actually numbers of red snapper out there) to the surface and awaiting fishbox. These anglers weren’t soft; they were smart.
Deep-drop fishing takes this idea to the extreme, plying depths of 300-1,000 feet or more for grouper and other species unidentifiable to most, but gobbled nonetheless by even the most discriminating palates.
One of my first bluewater trips, an overnighter to the Mars platform many years ago, was a bountiful one with plenty of school-sized yellowfin.
I was ready to take a shot at a fish larger than the 100-pound yellowfin cooling in the ice chest. Well before the advancements in live bait, we were trolling at the standard six knots with a wide spread when a large fish put a hole in the water the size of one of those new hybrid cars.
I was chock full of “young and dumb” in those days, and didn’t even know the meaning of “living in the moment” and enjoying the sweet song of the drag. No doubt with the look of Mike Singletary as the fish slowed its sizzling initial run, I mentally prepared for the fight ahead.
There was a whole lot more gold showing on the inside of the reel than before, probably a little more line than what is a drop at the Lena or Cognac platforms off the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Sometime shortly after I began cranking on the heavy fish, it made a run to port, and the line went slack. Panic-stricken, I reeled like mad trying to come tight with my prize, but it was apparent that the hooks had pulled.
Apprehension turned to rage that I’d lost the fish, which would have certainly been the largest skin on the proverbial wall by a large measure.
Plenty of anger poured into those first hundred cranks or so, and as the adrenaline began to wear off, the sweat started to streak in earnest, and I felt the first of several slight twinges in my forearms as the midsummer sun depleted the water in my system.
By the time the big pink Boone bird was spotted from the tower of the sportfisher — 30 feet below and still an agonizing 80 yards from the boat — I was doubled over in a wicked cocktail of exhaustion, dehydration and pain.
I had cursed — vocally and mentally — everything and everybody around me three times over, but the last leg was just simply about survival.
That’s about the best way I could think to describe bringing in a three-hook leader with a 3- to 6-pound lead weight to the surface. And that doesn’t include an angry grouper or barrelfish’s thumping tail stroke on the end of the line.
“Shoot, most people would fall out just bringing it up to check the bait,” said Scott Seaner, local distributor of Deep Drop Fishing, an East Coast electric reel outfit specializing in the heavy duty stuff. “There are tons of fish out there, some of the best-eating fish in the Gulf, that are barely touched by recreational fishermen because of the effort it takes to get them off the bottom.”
Almost as difficult as hoisting a big grouper from 1,000 feet was organizing a trip with Seaner and Bill Delabar, an offshore captain in Venice.
Hurricanes, business conflicts and about a hundred other things did their darndest to scuttle the trip, but finally, we shoved off from Venice Marina at around noon and sped down Grand Pass in Delabar’s 32-foot Twin-V catamaran, taking the shortcut through the first spillway and into Joseph’s Bayou and East Bay.
A flat-calm Gulf awaited and showcased dozens of balls of threadfin herring en route to South Pass 75, where we deployed the two deep-drop rigs.
“This rig is really good for Warsaw grouper,” said Twin-V dealer Kevin Hunter, a last-minute addition to the trip. Before diving into the boat dealership, Hunter was known as one of the best charter captains at plucking grouper from the rigs surrounding the birdfoot delta.
“There’s no telling how many spots — old wrecks, natural bottom, whatever — are out here that hold these fish, and nobody fishes them,” Hunter said, as we effortlessly skimmed across the glassy Gulf.
“They’ve got big Warsaw, gags, yellowedge, snowys and other fish that you literally couldn’t handle without one of these rigs,” said Seaner. “There’s plenty of really weird stuff down there, too. We’ve pulled up 8-foot conga eels, oilfish and other stuff we couldn’t even identify.”
Shane Pescay, a deep-drop enthusiast, was along for the ride, and manned his Deep Drop Pro, which looked more like a small crane than a fishing outfit. A thick fiberglass boom served as a rod, and a large reel held who-knows-how-much 130-pound high-visibility Spectra.
The whole outfit was fitted to a base, which swiveled 360 degrees on the rod holder. The stainless steel rod holder and rod bracket were custom-made by Deep Drop Fishing’s Terry Gauger.
On the other side of the boat, Hunter manned the more conventional looking Super Stick system, the reel being a Kristal 651 filled with 200-pound dark gray Spectra. Both reels were being run off a 12-volt battery.
“It’s a 36-inch solid fiberglass blank with three Fuji SIC guides,” said Seaner.
All of this might as well have been Chinese to me, but the inference was unmistakable: There were no shortcuts, from the motor on the reel to the components on the rod, brackets and base in this type of fishing.
“The key to this is to embolize the fish fast. You never know if it’s going to be a barely legal snowy grouper or a 100-pound Warsaw, so you’ve got to get the first 50 feet up as quickly as possible,” said Seaner. “My biggest is a 70-pound Warsaw, but I think we’ve all had fish that even this stuff couldn’t stop.”
Aside from two dozen hardtails, nothing much was happening at the bottom of the 325-foot depths at SP 75. Pescay filled his five-hook leader, buffered with a 400-pound mono leader and helped along in its quest with an LED light commonly used for longline fishing. Whole squid were continually hammered by a bevy of small fish.
“There are two kinds of lights. The long one Shane is using takes two AA batteries. These smaller ones are activated by saltwater, and will last five days or more,” said Seaner of the lights, which pulse about every two seconds. “Everything is pretty much blacked out once you get to around 300 feet. The lights glow in the dark constantly, and the pulse attracts the fish, where he gets a whiff of the bait.
“The weights are homemade. I make mine by pouring hot lead into a Red Bull can (three pounds) or a Coke can (six pounds) and adding a loop of stainless steel aircraft safety wire. The lead pretty much just twists out of the can when it’s cool.
“They’re much better than the downrigger balls, which can hang up in the pipes. With the cylinders, you can pretty much just snake them through the pipes.”
After a few minutes, he hit the switch and brought the rig to the surface, where five empty red and blue Frenzy circle hooks lay empty. Pescay filled them this time with a smorgasbord of squid, butterflied hardtail and a 14-inch white trout carcass I had snared back at the dock. The other rig was baited with a live hardtail and wasn’t touched.
“Let’s move. This isn’t real deep-drop fishing anyway,” said Seaner.
After another fruitless move to Moxie, we made our way to Lena, where the rigs, now 30 to 50 feet long to better work the bottom of the water column and avoid the murk layer on the very bottom, were sent down. It didn’t take long to hit paydirt.
“Man, as soon as it hit the bottom. Here he comes!” said Pescay.
The thick boom pulsed like a spastic recurve bow as the unseen fish struggled a thousand feet down, and the line was steadily fed back onto the reel. Several times, the drag — set at a beefy 40 pounds — slipped as the fish showcased its power. But soon it was all over but the bubbles.
“Grouper have a hard time adjusting their swim bladders. They can still throw their heads back and forth, but they can’t dig down,” said Seaner.
“It took three and a half minutes to get it down there, and it should be around four or five to get it back up,” said Pescay, who joined most of us in excitedly peering into the blue water far before the fish was anywhere close to being within sight.
Soon enough, a white shape came into view, and quickly ascended into clear viewing, where a burst of bubbles was loosed by the fish.
“Nice grouper!” said Seaner.
The gaff was fetched and carefully placed in the fish’s mouth to not disturb the meat. After some conversation, it was decided that it was a snowy grouper of about 25 pounds.
The next drop produced a barrelfish, which looked like a cross between a Bermuda chub and a pompano, and whose internal make-up allowed it to fight pretty much all the way to the surface. Most of the crew had never caught, much less eaten, one, but Hunter, who had landed several on a recent trip, reported the flesh as being every bit as good as grouper.
Soon, 10- to 25-pound snowy grouper and chunky barrelfish were coming up regularly. Thankfully, the sun had moved the Twin V’s t-top over Pescay and, not coincidentally, the rest of the crew. Hunter, on the other hand, was baking on the other side of the boat. He made up for it, however, with an amazing hot streak of hook-ups, pulling in fish after hefty fish.
“A lot of times, they’re just hitting it on the way down,” said Hunter.
As the bite slowed, we made a move to try and find a little color and variety in the grouper species. The water stayed the same brilliant blue as at Lena as we approached Cognac, and we spied a few sizeable busts from yellowfin tuna in the distance.
“That’s another thing about this kind of fishing. We’re mainly fishing the rigs that everybody knows, but nobody bottom fishes because they’re so deep,” said Seaner, who added that we probably wouldn’t have time for the Seven-Mile rigs on the way home.
The tuna didn’t stay up, and with time no longer on our side, we dropped off Delabar at the tie-off buoy — he wanted to stalk it for a dolphin or wahoo — we tied up at the rig and plucked a few more snowys from the thousand-foot depths, drawing a curious crowd of workers from high above.
Soon, our audience was pointing off in the distance as Delabar made his way to the boat.
As he got to within earshot, he pointed down to the water, signaling he had a fish and to get the gaff. The activity on the rig made it difficult to hear what he was saying, but soon enough, we made out “tuna.”
“He’s close to tearing off, so make sure you get him the first time,” a laboring Delabar said in between gulps of air and saltwater.
Seaner expertly stuck the exhausted fish, and hoisted the 60-pounder over the side as Delabar summoned the strength to clamber aboard.
“That could have gone really bad if I hadn’t hit him good. I’ve had that gun for about 15 years, and didn’t have my knife on me,” said Delabar. “I didn’t stone him, but he gave me a good broadside shot at about 20 feet.”
As if that weren’t enough, the day ended when both leaders were snagged on the rig after hooking fish. Both were cleated off and we backed down — only the Super Stick wouldn’t break. It was loaded up, though, with the thick fiberglass rod straining as much as it possibly could, but line was slowly filling the reel.
“That’s some cranking power, there,” said Seaner, shaking his head as a 30-foot section of heavy, rusted cable came into view, trailed, amazingly, by Pescay’s leader with a small snowy still attached, and Hunter’s rig, which had a barrelfish and another grouper as well.
The cable and the tangled conglomeration of line and hooks made for an unholy mess of rust, coral and bait, but after a lot of careful cutting, all fish were saved and the easy decision to head for the house was made.
No, it’s not for everybody, but if you like the adventure of fishing where few hooks have been seen for species most could not identify, or if you just like to eat grouper without risking a hernia and knowing the location of every wreck in the Gulf, deep-dropping could be the way to go. n
Deep Drop fishing tackle can be found at www.deepdrop.com or by calling Terry Gauger at (877) 374-1169. Capt. Bill Delabar offers deep-drop trips, and can be reached at (504) 723-0742.
