My First Halibut Trip

Last week I was on one of the Northwest fishing websites that I frequent (Ifish.net) and I seen an open seat posted for Halibut. I haven’t done much ocean fishing let alone Halibut fishing, I knew they are one of the best tasting fish out there so I sent the guy a PM and hoped I would get the seat. He sent me a message with the details and Saturday morning at 530 am I would meet up with him and fish for Halibut out of Newport! I arrived to Newport on Friday the day before, that way I could sleep in a little and make sure I wouldnt miss the 530 departure. I did a little bit of fishing off the jetty but I really didnt know what i was doing so I did more beer drinking then casting.

The Captain Randy was a great guy, he went through all the safety details before heading out. Stuff like how to use the radio, how to deploy the 4 person raft, how not to fire off a flare. It was about 30 miles out to the Halibut fishing grounds, we fished an area that’s called the chicken ranch. After a couple missed bites I ended up bringing in the first Halibut of the day, a tiny one that I didnt know was on there until I brought the whole rig up from over 500 feet down. It was probably about 16 inches and we quickly tossed it back out, so it can be a 50lber some day! After that fish it died down for us quite a bit, but over the radio we heard multiple boats limit out and heading back fairly quickly. We wound up trying drifts in different areas and around 330 in the afternoon it finally paid off!

This is my biggest fish ever caught! A really nice 43 inch and tasty Halibut. I didnt get any footage of me fighting it but I did get some cool video of Steve Fighting his big Halibut, it was just about the same size as mine. I also got video of Miles reeling up a smaller one 32inches and the Captain Randy bringing in one with his electronic reel, but his came unbuttoned right before he got it to the surface. The fishing and the company on the boat was awesome, couldn’t of asked for better people to fish with. The only down side to fishing for Halibut was the fact that they were 500 and 600 feet deep and we were using three and four pound weights, so when we had to reel up to switch spots or do the drift over, it was a reel BITCH. Here’s the video I made, it’s a little long at 8 minutes but I still think its worth the watch.

If you think all fish should be caught and released you should probably not watch this video, the Halibut gets a well deserved beat down by Miles once in the boat! He lost a few expensive rigs to the bottom of the sea, so he let his frustration out on the poor fish. It was a great experience for which ultimately ended up being the best fish iv ever ate!

 The three we ended up keeping, next to the No Bail.

Thanks for stopping by and reading. Like always… Tight Lines!!!