Goldens, Bluelines, Grouper, Wreckfish

We ran away from the the rockfish action and headed offshore to do some bottom fishing around the Norfolk Canyon. On our first drop, I caught our largest blueline tilefish of the day. It weighed in at 18.5 pounds. We caught some more bluelines but spent most of our time deeper, away from the sea bass. Martin Freed caught our largest golden tilefish at 42 pounds. Jeff Dail caught our only snowy grouper. We had a half-dozen fish that the guys just could not get off of the bottom. Wreckfish rounded out our “grouper” catch. Daniel Simmerman caught some type of large crab with impressive claws. The crab was not snagged, it had the hook in its mouth. Daniel’s best catch of the day was when he snagged the line of one of my rods that Martin had dropped overboard. There was a lot of line to hand-line in but I got my rod back. We only caught a single spiny dogfish all day. There were some smooth dogs and bluefish to deal with. The bluefish were turned into bait. We also caught some hake and blackbelly rosefish (and some big sea bass before we moved deep enough to get away from them). Smooth ride out and back and at times, the guys were down to fishing in their t-shirts.