Quote:
Originally Posted by AceArcher
In all seriousness nice family MG. I really would love to hear more about the Halibut.
|
Alaska. That pic is from the Gulf of Alaska just off the Kenai Peninsula. We spent a few days in Kenai and then went to Seward for the remainder of a two week trip. I like the Seward and Resurrection Bay area a lot better than the Kenai Peninsula. The fishing was better, the restaurants were better, the motels and cabins were better, and the guides were better.
Everyone and his brother makes a living from tourism in the Kenai Peninsula, and everyone is a guide. It's a real mixed bag quality wise.
Resurrection Bay is the most beautiful place on earth, and Seward is a small port town on the Bay. The Marina fish cleaning stations are really hopping every afternoon in the Summer with the head boats and the guides returning with their catches. You can go out and talk to the customers and the boat captains and pick a guide or head boat that matches what you want to do.
For halibut, the boats head for deep water, 200-400'. The current is strong, so you attach a 1-4 lb lead weight to your line and let down your line to the bottom and then reel it back in just a tad so your bait is close to, but not resting on the bottom. The bait is cut fish either brought out frozen or freshly caught and cut up. The halibut in the picture were caught near Kenai. We caught some bigger ones out from Seward. You can see the trolling rods in the background. We were trolling (unsuccessfully) for salmon on the ride in. We got into the salmon later in a trip in Resurrection Bay.
The bigger halibut are loads of fun to catch. One of the mates gaffs the bigger fish after a big long fight. Then the boats have almost a ceremony where you set the fish on top of the fish box and whack them in the head with a billy club to euthanize them so they don't suffer a slow death in the box. We caught some really interesting bycatch also, lingcod, seabass, etc.
We fished four times in the two week trip and brought home enough fish for a year. Great times and good eats.