Fishing The Edge Of The Abyss

As we boarded American Patriot, Captain Ralph Hawkins told us he’d try his best to put us on fish. But none of the 22 guests could have imagined that over the next three days we’d eat like royalty, sleep like the innocent, fish the deepest fishable abyss in the Gulf of Mexico (America) and catch a variety of game fish most of us had never seen before – or even knew existed.

The aptly named 135-foot headboat, once responsible for evacuating hundreds of New Yorkers on 9/11 and now based in Marco Island, Florida, had been refitted and upgraded to the max to take fishermen far and deep into the Gulf. As we boarded, we were each given a bracelet with our rail assignment number (your spot to fish from) and a bunk number. We deposited our fishing gear on the deck and our personal gear in our bunks, headed to the lounge for orientation, and met our shipmates. Some had flown from Colorado and others had driven from Maine and the Carolinas for the rare opportunity to search for the deepest gamefish in the Gulf.

Casting Off

We left Marco Island at 6 p.m. with the compass pointed west. Captain Hawkins explained we were headed to one of the world’s deepest living reefs about 150 miles west of Florida. The destination was Pulley Ridge, an area that was once a series of barrier islands during the ice ages when sea levels were lower, but now lies some 250 feet below the surface, surrounded by deep water and supporting the deepest known light-dependent coral reef in continental U.S. waters.

Discovered in 1950, the ridge protrudes off the sea floor at the edge of the continental shelf and is, by oceanic standards, a small area running 186 miles north and south and 9 miles wide east and west. But only the southern 30 miles of the ridge top supports the richly diverse deep corals and both deep- and shallow-water fish, a rarity in marine ecosystems.

To protect this unique environment, Pulley Ridge has been designated a Habitat Area of Particular Concern by the Gulf Fishery Management Council, and special regulations protect the corals and fish of this reef community. American Patriot strictly adheres to limits on game fish to ensure a sustainable fishery, and a biologist accompanied us to record numbers and kinds of fish caught to help monitor overall harvest on the ridge. Pulley Ridge also has special regulations prohibiting fishing with bottom longlines, bottom trawls, buoy gear, pots, or traps. Anchoring is prohibited.

Finding Bottom

At 3 a.m., after an eight-hour run, the boat came to a stop, and the captain announced that we could fish if we wanted; he’d stay on top of the ridge until dawn. Despite the early hour, no one slept in. The captain recommended using an 8-ounce sinker with a single circle hook baited with squid or cut ballyhoo and let it drop all the way down to the bottom – around 250 feet. The reels were spooled with 60-pound braid with 20 feet of 50-pound mono on the end to help the crew untangle the inevitable snarls that would ensue with 20 people fishing side-by-side. Braid is essential for detecting the slightest bite that deep, but it’s impossible to untie once entwined. Because all the fishing on Pulley Ridge is drift fishing, everyone had to fish from the same side to avoid massive line tangles as the boat drifted sideways in the light breeze.

When the captain said “drop,” we released the spools on our reels. It takes some time for bait to fall 25 stories, but when it reached the target, we took up the slack and eagerly watched our rod tips for the slightest movement.

Electric reels are essential to this kind of fishery. It’s time-consuming and hard work to crank up several hundred feet of line with a manual reel. Plus, in deeper water there’s at least 2 pounds of lead below a two-hook deep-drop rig – and then add a fighting fish or two to the mix. With the simple press of a button, an electric reel spools out hundreds of feet of line, and another button brings it back up. Captain Hawkins has a special arrangement with Reel Play Fishing Rentals, which offers Daiwa Tanacom electric reels and quality rods for those who don’t own them.

It was only moments before almost everyone’s rod tips started moving, and the electric reels began winding up fish winch-like to the surface. It was our first look at the surprising menagerie of life inhabiting Pulley Ridge, and the beginning of a remarkable flurry of fish catching unlike any I’ve experienced. The crew stayed busy, using their 15-foot gaffs to grab fish alongside the boat and pull them up to the deck and over the rail.

Yellow-eye snappers were the first over the rail, then three railmates each hooked up cobia at the same time, a fish usually associated with shallow water. Immediately, another railmate had a fish on that was so big it tangled other lines. He had to walk the length of the boat to reel it in. The monster turned out to be an out-of-season 60-pound amberjack, which was quickly released.

A barracuda and then a king mackerel came over the rail, unusual for either species to be that deep. It must be a rare reef indeed that these shallow-water fish can be found more than 100 miles from the nearest reefs around Key West and the Tortugas. Then more amberjack came in, each time snarling lines in their battle to the boat. It was snappers we most wanted, and it was mostly big yellow-eye snappers we put on ice.

American Patriot is geared for this kind of fishing with large ice-making machines and fish lockers filled with a seawater/ice slurry. Each fisherman was given a number, and the crew tagged the catches accordingly before putting them in the supercooled lockers.

Into The Void

At sunrise, as we sailed farther west to deeper water, chef Mike Jerlinski presented a gourmet breakfast fit for a king. The captain said we’d soon start deep dropping in 700-plus feet of water, then later move farther west and fish almost twice that deep.

Once we arrived at our first deep-fishing area, our signal to start fishing was when the boat stopped. All 22 of us were ready, and sent our two hook “chicken rigs,” baited with squid and weighted with 2 pounds of lead, to the bottom. The whirring sound of electric reels pulling up lines began as soon as the baits hit the sea floor, this time with different denizens of the deep.

Blueline tilefish, a fish only deep-water anglers will ever see, came in first, sometimes two at a time. Then yellowedge groupers started coming up. Like tilefish, they dig and occupy burrows in soft ocean sediment and often share the same areas of the sea floor. Occasionally a grouper and a tilefish came up on the same rig. Then two yellow-eye snappers.

The wind was light and our drift was slow but fast enough to drift into a different kind of bottom habitat that held the most beautiful of the Gulf snappers: the bright red queen snapper. Chef Mike, on an afternoon break from the galley, brought up a huge golden tilefish, a prize of the deep. Many of the fishermen put down their rods to take a look at a gamefish few people ever see. And so it continued, almost everyone adding yellowedge grouper, tilefish, and queen snapper to their life list of catches.

While we enjoyed chef Mike’s filet mignon dinner, the crew counted our catch to ensure we were abiding fish limits, and the captain took us to a different area of the ridge top for another opportunity at all-night snapper fishing. Some of us were fished out and slept through the night; others fished until dawn.

The night was calm, the water clear. Throughout the night, we caught more snappers, mostly yellow-eyes. Then a rare African pompano, a remarkably beautiful fish, came over the rail. There was the cobia so big the captain had to help hold it up. Deep- and shallow-water fish came in side by side. All the while, dolphins gave us a show as they chased flying fish along the boat, and schools of squid made their way through the lights.

Off The Cliff

Dawn broke with a steak-and-eggs breakfast, chef Mike on top of his game. The captain said the next stop was going to be a 1,200-foot drop. But a front was brewing in the north, bringing winds over 20 knots later, so our day would be a little short. And we still had a 10-hour run home.

It took a while to send our gear down 1,200 feet, and the bite was a little slower, but new kinds of fish, most of us had never seen or heard of, started taking the bait. A big alfonsino, known by its bright-red color and large eye for seeing in deep twilight, came aboard, then a rare deep-water toro came in. It’s remarkable how vibrant these deep-water fish are, an adaptation that makes them invisible to their prey in low-light conditions.

Then blackbelly rosefish started coming up. This is one of the Gulf’s deepest game fish, known for its tasty table fare and venomous spines that can sting like a wasp. Big tilefish came in, too, sometimes with a rosefish on the other hook. When the wind picked up in the afternoon, the captain said it was time to leave and advised it would be a rough run home. After dinner, we all collapsed in our bunks.

Home Again

Dawn broke at the dock, and the crew unloaded our catch at first light. They removed our fish from the slurry lockers, put them in barrels, and emptied them on a bed of ice laid out in the parking lot.

We circled around the pile, our cooler lids yawning. The crew picked up each fish and called out its tagged number, then put it the catcher’s cooler. Our Colorado friend had clearly caught the most fish. His secret? He used a glow-in-the-dark deep-water jig the whole trip.

The crew filleted fish for some of the guests, but my friends and I took ours home to fillet ourselves. A rare fish fry of deep-water game fish was on the menu tonight!