Fish just for the halibut

I was hoping for one last chance to fish for silvers in my favorite “secret spot” until the skies opened up last week and washed the opportunity away. I am still hoping to make a final day trip while bait is still legal and see if I can catch at least one more silver before it’s over.

However, I was able to still go fishing. A halibut charter purchased nearly nine months ago was still pending and I was able to take advantage this past Monday. This Ninilchik beach launching charter is always an adventure, especially if the waters are just a bit rough, but I’m getting too old for that kind of adventure. Thankfully, the waters were calm, the winds were light and the sky was occasionally sunny. For this trip, the adventure lay in catching fish and enjoying the company and comments of other charter clients.

I was booked on the afternoon charter, so I had the morning to watch as the first guided groups of the day returned to the staging area. A Fish and Game technician was on hand to measure the catch and retrieve otoliths for later aging of the fish. I asked the tech a few questions while she worked at collecting the biological data.

My first question was whether the halibut were “mushy,” similar to the reports from last year of mushy halibut. Both the tech and the boat crewmembers filleting fish said this year’s halibut harvest was overwhelmingly firm-fleshed and that very little mushy flesh had been observed. My second question was why the difference from last year?

The tech answered that the mushy flesh was thought to be caused by malnutrition and stress to the halibut. The tech then noted that the sport catch of Pacific, or gray, cod was at an all-time low this year. She then speculated that the lack of cod reduced the competition for food with the halibut, which then led to a reduction in stress. On last year’s halibut charter, we took home three nice cod along with a limit of halibut. This year, only halibut were biting, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As the skipper, a young but very capable lady, turned the boat off the beach and began the trip to the fishing area, a fog began to settle way off in the distance. Over the course of the afternoon, the fog settled lower and eventually totally surrounded our boat. Visibility was only a couple hundred yards in any direction. Comments from the clients started to center on seeing Captain Jack Sparrow and wondering when The Black Pearl would suddenly surface and sail by. After a short time, the fog burned off and the day became sunny once again.

The fishing actually started a little faster than the skipper had wanted. The deckhand had rigged and baited the gear on the trip out and after anchoring had tossed a couple of lines overboard to demonstrate how we were supposed to handle the rods. The skipper was giving us instruction when the first rod tip began jerking and bobbing. Since I was standing closest to that particular rod, I was instructed to step over and give the reel a few cranks. We were fishing with circle hooks, so a hook-setting pull on the rod was not required.

I followed the skipper’s instructions and the first fish of the day was reeled in and landed. It wasn’t a large fish, but was just the right size to yield four great eating fillets. I was halfway to my limit.

The action seemed to come in spurts. If one fish was hooked, usually a second or even a third was not far behind. Between these bursts of activity, things were relatively calm. Nobody landed anything except halibut if you’ll overlook the small shark one client hooked and brought to the boat. The 2-foot shark managed to throw the hook before it could be gaffed, landed and swam off. A suggestion was made that now Eric could claim to have hooked Jaws. This particular group of folks must be avid movie watchers with all the references to pirates and killer sharks.

We ended the charter in less than four hours with a full client limit. The skipper caught her fish in less than 10 minutes after all the clients had limited out. She was young, but she certainly knew how to fish for halibut. This was a fun trip.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.