Bottomfish anglers can have a new variety of deepwater fish to challenge their skills and endurance.
A few years ago, Dink Shull, skipper of the Storm Petrel out of Wanchese, went deep-drop fishing for blueline tilefish at the edge of the Continental Shelf.
His fishing party caught plenty, but the total didn’t include a golden tilefish. However, at the dock he showed his anglers iced boxes of fish commercial guys had caught during a three-day trip to the Norfolk Canyon. Among that catch was a golden tilefish, loads of small deepwater rosefish, and a single wreckfish that looked like a disinterred grouper.
Web photos of wreckfish are mostly underwater and fuzzy or indistinct for other reasons. So when Jim Brincefield, skipper of the Jil Carrie out of Virginia Beach posted wreckfish photos at his web site, it was the first time I’d seen the fish alive and in sharp focus.
They still look like disinterred groupers.
Biology
Wreckfish aren’t groupers or anything else. They’re in their own dedicated family (Polyprionidae).
Depending upon where one looks, there’s either a single species (Polyprion americanus) that ranges from Newfoundland to Argentina and across the pond to Scotland or just a few around the world. But altogether about five names have been applied to what looks like a single world-wide fish.
The ones in Japanese waters are sometimes called Stereolepis doederleini, but it’s probably the same fish — if life history has anything to do with it.
Unlike groupers, wreckfish have a months-long juvenile stage during which they hang out near driftwood and other floating debris at the surface. The juveniles are attracted to any log, branch or pallet (like mahi-mahi) and stick close while it drifts with the current. Because the Gulf Stream (where many wreckfish young have been collected) traverses the entire North Atlantic and mixes with other currents, including northern currents that head way south, and below the equator with a southern circulation, anything at the surface can get anywhere.
So wreckfish are likely to be along for a ride that could take them just about anywhere.
The South Atlantic mixes with the Indian and Pacific oceans around the capes off Chili and South Africa, which is why bluefin tuna, amberjack, cobia (and wreckfish) can have worldwide distributions.
Wreckfish look like narrow groupers put together by Dr. Frankenstein.
Their heads jut out a bit from a slight nape (it smoothly transitions to the body in groupers), and bony ridges across the gill cover and across the eyes have observers expecting to see electrode pegs protruding from their necks. Arrrgghhh.
Their bodies are stubby and more compressed side to side, compared to a grouper, but the best way to determine if you’ve got one at the end of your line is to see one.
If a grouper is sleek, a la Paris Hilton, a wreckfish looks like it just woke up and realized it was a munchkin. They are the Danny DeVitos of the fish world, short and stubby.
Wreckfish habitat
Most of us never see wreckfish because they live along steep slopes in deep water at the Continental Slope or in submarine canyons.
They’re normally in 300 to 2000 feet of water along walls, or in caves or shipwrecks where the only way to fish them commercially is with electric or hydraulic deep hooks and lines with a pound or more of weight.
They’ll eat anything, so that’s not a problem. But commercial guys at most places can’t make a living by catching wreckfish because gas and equipment are costly, the catch is small, and the fish don’t command a price much different than shallower-water and more abundant grouper.
Trawling is impossible at these bottoms, and it’s too deep for traps. Sport fishermen seldom go out that far because it takes too long, it’s too deep to fish without mechanical help (but you can do it), and if they do run that far offshore, they want a lot of fish.
As a result, the main deep-water attraction off the East Coast are blueline tilefish, which prefer sandy, muddy or gravel bottoms rather than rocky walls.
The National Marine Fisheries Service once said the principal wreckfish fishing areas were within a 50- to 75- nautical square-mile area of the Blake Plateau, marked by rocky ridges dropping more than 150 feet at a slope of more than 15 degrees with a depth range of 350 to 1800 feet. These bottoms, said NMFS, consist of manganese-phosphate and phosphorite rock and coral mounds and banks.
Today it’s known these fish extend far beyond that range, and have been caught off deep northern coasts in cold waters. Wreckfish also often are found at deep dark coral reefs. Some of these reefs are in water that gets as cold as 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Wreckfish have been caught in cold (but not temperature-recorded) waters off Newfoundland, Scotland and Argentina.
So they’re not groupers and not necessarily tropical.
Commercial attempts
The commercial guys made a concerted effort in 1987 to mine for wreckfish when two boats landed a combined 29,000 pounds at the Charleston Bump off South Carolina (it’s like the Big Rock on steroids).
Within four years, 80 boats landed 4 million pounds, selling them for close to $2 per pound.
A suddenly exploding fishery seeking this slow-growing fish caught the eye of NMFS. When you have a lot of people fishing hard for a slow-growing species, you’ve got a formula for repeating what cod fishermen did at the Grand Banks and bluefin tuna fishermen did world-wide before the agencies could step in and stop the overkill.
Wreckfish are slow growers that get big, reportedly up to 7-feet long, and may weigh more than 200 pounds. However, slow growers are quickly depleted as fishermen target big spawners (American fishermen use 16/0 hooks), and stocks can take decades or more to replenish, even under controlled conditions.
NMFS and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council acted to control entry to the Charleston Bump fishery by starting an individual transfer quota (ITQ) program and put severe limits on landings Boats already in the fishery could apply for a quota but could sell their (limited) quotas to other boats.
That made commercial fishing no longer profitable for most boats. Efforts plummeted, with just a few remaining commercial fishermen buying enough quotas to make their trips worthwhile.
Today the federal ITQ applies at only one area, the South Atlantic management region (North Carolina to Florida), where commercial fishermen are allowed to land and sell these fish, and recreational retention of wreckfish is prohibited.
Virginia fun fishing
Enter the Jil Carrie out of Virginia Beach.
Captain Brincefield is one of the few skippers taking trips for blueline tilefish. He began targeting tilefish less than two years ago and often fishes the edges and slopes of the Norfolk Canyon due east of Virginia Beach.
During several trips, he landed wreckfish and seldom-seen unusual deepwater groupers. He’s got the only good-sized headboat targeting tilefish based at Virginia Beach, but there may be more boats working slightly north.
Several charter boats also chase tilefish from Tidewater, Va., and perhaps also land some wreckfish.
“We do 18-hour trips, maybe every other day in good weather,“ Brincefield said, “running five hours out and five hours back during (mostly) dark. That leaves about eight hours of deep-drop fishing, usually from the edge of the Continental Shelf to the edge of the Norfolk Canyon. It takes a long time to get out there, 75 miles from Virginia Beach.
“We get a lot of big black sea bass with our deep-water blueline tilefish, but 52 or 53 fathoms seems to be the depth limit for sea bass. When we go deeper, it’s all blueline tilefish.
“We need to get to 60 or 70 fathoms before we see wreckfish. And we don’t see golden tilefish, which are still deeper.
“It’s not for everyone. That’s a long time on a boat, sometimes the weather is a little rough, and it can be hard, even it you’re experienced. But the boat usually fills up.
“The tilefishing seems to be getting better and better, and the occasional wreckfish or grouper is just gravy.”
Brincefield said few people bring their own electric-reel tackle because fish caught that way are ineligible for citations. He doesn’t carry electric reels, but provides alternative tackle Penn 330s with 30-pound-class boat rods and Penn 340s with 40-pound-class rods.
He prefers them because they’re levelwinds, and people “tend to get excited and not pay attention to the line piling up at one side of the spool.”
The Shimanos have up to a 6:1 gear ratio; some people bring their own.
“We use 30-pound monofilament on all the reels, with 6 to 8 feet of 80-pound mono leader and double-dropper loops,” he said. “Baits can be cut mackerel, squid, Gulp lures, and even chicken-wing bones — not the wings — the bones.”
It’s too deep to anchor and too dangerous to drift, so he hovers the Jil Carrie over good marks. This tactic burns lots of gas, but it holds position and keeps the fish coming.
“This is something we do when enough people want it,” he said.
During the summer the Jil Carrie also trolls for tuna, dolphin, wahoo and king mackerel.
Keeping wreckfish
Until May 1, 2007, recreational fishermen were free to land wreckfish at Virginia Beach and ports to the north, even though they couldn’t land them at N.C. ports.
And it’s too far to the Norfolk Canyon from Oregon Inlet.
Schull said he took Norfolk Canyon commercial trips, but it takes a day to reach the offshore area from Oregon Inlet and a day to return, leaving one day of fishing.
“It’s okay for commercial fishing, but recreational guys aren’t going to want to do that kind of trip,” he said.
Erik Barth of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission confirmed new rules for bringing wreckfish and tilefish back to Virginia ports.
That state now allows anglers to land seven tilefish and one grouper per person per day. However, it lists wreckfish among the grouper species for management purposes.
Brincefield said he believes anglers legally can land more wreckfish in states to the north for now, but regulations have a way of expanding like leaking ink on a white shirt.
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