16 Jun 07/No Tuna, Lots of Tile

Report – Norfolk Canyon – No Tuna but Lots of Tiles

Saw a decent weather break for Saturday, 16 June so put together a crew of your truly, Lanie, Greg, Tom, and Naved. Dang cloud cover could not get a decent SST shot so we packed up both the trolling gear and deep dropping gear. Headed out with some left over swell from the NE blow but was not too bad. I think my crew slept most of the way.

Bean Bags - that's the ticket

Went just South of the Norfolk Canyon and and found some water going from 64 to 67. Even though we didn’t see many signs of life, we started out on the troll for Mr. Bluefin. After about 2 hours of trolling without even a pull and no good marks, we put away the trolling gear and headed to deep drop. Little did I know that some 70 degree water had moved in just north of the canyon.

We started out grouper hunting in deep water. No grouper joy but Tom pulled up some of these Black Bellied Rose Fish. Cut little suckers but not really worth cranking at 125 fathoms.

Rose Fish

Tried a few more spots grouper hunting but no luck. Brought along some live croaker and spot and put them down deep but nothing touched them.

So headed over for some blueline tile fish and found a nice class getting our limit of 35 in short order absolutely stuffing my 2 main fish boxes. Them things are a blast and after cranking at 100 fathoms, 50 does not seem so bad. Talked to Jake on the Matador who was having a good day dropping too.

Here is a short video from the day.

Norfolk Canyon Deep Dropping Video. (Video is not currently available, please check back)