Deep-sea Fishing
With the decline of traditional commercial fish stocks such as hake and cod in shallow water continental shelf areas, fishing fleets have increasingly turned their attention to fish stocks in deeper waters. Deep-sea stocks are fish populations exploited in waters beyond the main fishing grounds of the continental shelves. They are distributed on the continental slopes or are associated with seamounts.
Deep-sea fishing is generally considered to be carried out in waters deeper than about 400m. The target fish are often long-lived, slow growing, late maturing, slow-breeding species, which are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Many are deep-living demersal (benthic or benthopelagic*) species found at or above the seabed. Others are pelagic and live in the mid-water column or towards the sea bottom. With improvements in fishing technology and increased exploration, new deep-sea fish continue to be discovered.
Tackle
In comparison with all the other methods of angling, game fish (and particularly deep-sea) angling has the largest variety as well as the most expensive tackle on offer. Here a line needs to be drawn between the requirements of casual angler and a dedicated tournament fisherman. While casual angler may have one or maybe two sets of trolling gear as well as a spinning rod, the tournament angler inevitably ends up with as many as two or even three sets of tackle for each line-class categories in which he chooses to compete.
Apart from the specialized 'banana butt' or bent butt rods specifically designed to use in a fighting chair, there are two types of deep-sea trolling rods. The earlier trolling rods were longer and stiffer and had a much slower taper than the more popular, shorter stand-up rods which have now corned the market.
Deep-sea angling Bait
The huge differences in technique, tackle and trace used by the shore angler to the deep-sea angler is further emphasized by the bait that are used. When deep-sea angling, the bait is not subject to the current and moving waters of the surf zone. Trolled slowly behind a boat, the gentle forward motion of the bait can be harnessed into giving it an exciting action in the water. Bait rigged for slow trolling will also be very effective on the anchor or on the drift as the current can provide the movement required to give the bait a lifelike appearance.
Mullet, sardines, Japanese mackerel, pinky and skipjack are all popular game fish bait.
Other types of deep-sea bait:
Shad
Big baits, big fish. That maxim is especially true of big shad - a premier offering for the couta or giant kingfish, and look out for the billfish that takes a liking to the shad's shiny skin.
Silkie
It is caught by trolling small feathers along the back-line in much the same way as you would when fishing for queen mackerel.
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