Out to sea just for the Halibut!

June 16th, 2017

Today Norm, Dennis and Vickie went deep sea fishing for halibut.  I chose not to go for many reasons - I wanted to get some blog work done, go out and take some pictures of those eagles I saw last night, book our adventure tours for when we will be in Valdez and McCarthy in a few weeks, and talk to my daughters.  I miss them.  The sun was out 100 percent, and it is just too much for me. Quite frankly, after last night’s fishing expedition, I had enough of that “fun” for a while. I could make my own fun, thank you, and not cost an arm and a leg while doing it.

The charter boat from the small company Inn and Out

I had a great time, not doing much other than grocery shopping and washing the filthy car, savoring the conversations with my daughters.

I met them at the dock as they came in, and took pictures of the proud group when they were hung up for display.  We then took their treasures to the processing plant taking about 3 hours when all was said and done.

We grilled up last night’s salmon and it was fabulous.

Norm's tale in his own words:

Had to get to the boat by 7:30am.  Doesn't matter how early or how late, it's always daylight here. The 3 of us hooked up with another group of 3 and we headed out to sea.  Sunny sky, no wind, temp in the mid 60's, snow capped mountains all around us.  WOW!

  After a 2 hr ride (stopping to see whales on the way) we arrived at our destination.  The captain had asked me to bring the carcass of the salmon I had caught the previous day because he said it was like "candy" to the halibut.  He proceeded to cut out the salmon brain and put it on my hook as bait along with a piece of herring.

Whoa, that's gotta be big!

Within a half hour I got the big tug and the fight was on.  Mind you this is not like catching a sport fish, more like snagging on to a garbage can and having to reel it in while it twists and turns on the way up.  But it is a LONG way up.

We were bottom fishing at 200-300 feet. When it gets to around 20 feet from the surface, the halibut gets mad and tries to swim back down or under the boat.  This part gets tricky because your arms are killing you from reeling in for so long.

 The captain was by the side with a harpoon which he stabbed into my catch.  The harpoon was attached to a large float which would tire out the fish as it thrashed about.  After a few minutes I was able to reel it in and the captain snagged it with a long gaff and it took two of us to get it on board - measured at 57" and weighed in at 88.8lbs.

At 88.8 lbs, Norm had the biggest on the boat!

 Strange rules here - I had caught a halibut over 28" and was precluded from catching another that big for the rest of the day so I was told to put my rod in the holder and sit back and watch.  BORING.  The object of the game was to get every one of the 6 of us to catch their 1 and only halibut greater than 28".

 By the end of the day we had succeeded but mine remained the largest catch of the day.  We headed back to the marina with several hundred pounds of halibut, rockfish (red snapper) and some other edible creatures of the sea.

Harvest at sea. The fishing crew with the captain 

In case you were wondering, since we are not huge fans of Halibut, and limit our intake due to the mercury they contain, we opted not to spend the $170 to send 30 pounds of frozen halibut home and only have 10 pounds put in cans to be sent.  The Little's friends and family will be enjoying the rest of Norm's catch!