How deep is DEEP?

I made mention of deep drop fishing in my last blog “Braid Rules!” and got some emails asking “how deep can you fish with the right gear?”

Deep drop fishing comes in three varieties— Deep, Very Deep and Extreme. I have had the opportunity to cover the bases using a mix of human and electric powered reels and they all have their appeal, not the least of which is you never know what you might drag up from down there!

DEEP starts around 250 feet and extends to 500 feet. A high-speed conventional reel and a rod capable of handling sinkers up to 24 ounces will do the trick. Depending on where you fish theses depths can give up codfish, pollock, haddock, a variety of groupers and snappers, gray tilefish, wreckfish and amberjacks.

VERY DEEP goes from 500 to 800 feet. If you’ve got the stamina, a heavy conventional outfit that can handle sinkers up to 4 pounds will work, but a moderately sized electric reel makes for a lot less work. It also means no possibility of a recognized world record fish because the IGFA does not recognize electrics as legal sport fishing tackle. These depths can hold golden and gray tilefish, snowy grouper, wreckfish, yelloweye snapper, wolfish, weird eels and a host of oddities you’ve never seen before.

EXTREME is 800 feet or more and really separates the men from the boys. Big electric reels are expensive and boat handling is critical to hold position over structure. The deepest I’ve fished was in the Bahamas and we caught beautiful and very tasty queen snappers in 1,300 to 1,500 feet of water and a very rare six-gill shark over 500 lbs.

There is one thing all these rigs have in common—braided line. Without the thin diameter and low stretch of Grand Slam Braid you would never be able to see or feel a fish hit at those depths, never mind set the hook. On conventional reel and smaller electrics 80-lb Grand Slam Braid is ideal. On middle-weight electrics 100 to 150 lb. is the way to go. On the electric reels capable of raising a truck off the ground you don’t want to use anything lighter than 200 lb. To go deep, use the line that gets the job done – HI-SEAS Grand Slam Braid.