Halibut Fishing - Homer Alaska

During our trip to Alaska I had arranged an all day Halibut (giant flat fish) trip out of the halibut capital supposedly of the world.  Sounds romantic, indeed from the scarp overlooking Homer spit it looks really attractive – the reality is that it is a very ugly, grey, fishing town.

 

Waking early and looking over the ocean out of the hotel room window I was greeted with a fine day, gentle breeze and, by WA standards, a light chop on the ocean.   As a charter I was one of a group of ten who were to be fishing out of a 40 foot charter vessel.  Trouble was only five miles out the skipper put it to the vote (with full refund) as he considered it “a little rough” – hell the conditions by our standards were superb but with a 5/5 split the skipper turned around.

With only that day available due to ongoing plans the moment we hit port I shot across to some of the half day charter operators and was successful  in securing a spot for the afternoon but that meant not being able to target the really large halibut out wide – we would be limited to – chickens – less than 50lb fish closer in

The tackle provided was typical charter style except for the actual rigs made up of thick Dacron traces tied directly to 10/0 circles and large kilo leads for bottom bouncing

The idea is that you deliberately bang the lead on the bottom hard and often and this stirs up the sand / mud and the noise attracts the halibut.

Well it works a treat, the afternoon proved even better than the morning with a total glass off and the only sea movement being huge up-wellings caused by the strong currents and large bottom obstructions.

Fish were easy to hook and you are only allowed two fish (kept) and the moment you elect to keep two you are required to stop fishing – you cannot fish on catch and release as you might kill another fish and exceed your limit (which is to be changed next year to one fish per person as they consider the stocks “endangered” – from what I saw and experienced that seems unlikely but with only a half day fish and a clearly good skipper perhaps I was lucky.  It is however interesting to see the approach  taken here being matched across the world.

 

 

Here are a couple photos from the day, the boat bagged out easily and I gave my two fish to a retired local.  Yes they fight and fight hard, the larger ones are actually harpooned and killed before coming aboard as they are considered too dangerous with huge hooks flailing around a charter boat that is understandable but not very sporting.  Still an experience – next time (I hope there is a next time ) I will get to target one of the barn door sized versions ..........and yes they are superb to eat, sweet firm and very like snapper in texture – yum

 

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Lucky Tim's picture

Posts: 2536

Date Joined: 28/11/07

great report, I've seen some

Fri, 2011-09-09 12:03

great report, I've seen some photos of big halibut but I didn't realize there were those restrictions placed on fishing for them. Spewing about the wimps on the first charter, at least you got to get out on the other.

Looking forward to the rest of the reports.

dkonig82's picture

Posts: 2091

Date Joined: 06/07/10

Sounds great - have seen some

Fri, 2011-09-09 12:18

Sounds great - have seen some pics of absolute monsters being caught off kayaks over the years. Would love to get one!

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When asked by a non-fisherman 'how many fishing rods do you really need?' the correct answer is either:

n+1 (where n is the number of fishing rods you currently own); or

n-1 (where n is the number of fishing rods which would cause your significant other to dump you. 

Posts: 67

Date Joined: 03/04/08

Great stuff - I targetted

Fri, 2011-09-09 16:30

Great stuff - I targetted them in Norway from the yak to no avail, though would love to nail even a small 50lber - go like shi* off a shovel and have ooba stamina  Great fun on spinning gear

sea-kem's picture

Posts: 15012

Date Joined: 30/11/09

That's awesome. They look

Fri, 2011-09-09 16:40

That's awesome. They look delicious just sitting  on the deck. Lightly pan fried in butter I'm starting to drool.

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Love the West!