Home Forums Fishing Saltwater My first halibut of the year

Hauled this one up a few days ago. 61.5", 115-120lbs

Hard to haul them up when they come up like this.

Damn! Congrats on a great, delicious fish!

tail hooked?

Boy that must have been fun bringing it in

nice fish

I saw some recent pictures of the Wounded Warrior event, they took in quite a haul of Halibut and a few Cod. Good luck to all!

Yeah it was tail hooked. Fun really doesn't describe it.

Nice job Hank. Where abouts is that dock? Kings are in over at Craig. We've been doing rather well.

I am east of you. I haven't bothered to get my king stamp yet, we don't see many here. This is actually only the second halibut I have gotten here in 2 years.

Nice haul there!

We caught only one last summer.....and it wasn't even close to being that size....congrats....nice fish

Halibut seem to get body hooked alot. I think sometimes they capture (cover with their body) a prey item before committing to eating it. I am pretty sure they regularly eat the lead weight. I would really like to see what goes on down there in the inky darkness...I do not think they eat spawned out salmon. I do know they eat the small Dungies that gather on the salmon carcasses. When they are big enough they just do as they will.

What type of rig are you using when you body hook them?

I seen it a lot with jigs if you're slow on the hookset.

I picture it as a halibut circling something they haven't fully committed on taking in their mouth. It could be that they're unsure of what it is or protecting "their" food from other halibut. What I'm talking about occurs with a jig/bait that's off the bottom too.

I've caught halibut on a bare 6 or 8 oz lead jig head painted white with nothing on it. When they're schooled up and aggressively feeding they'll eat almost anything.

I am sure that halibut simply swim past your mainline with jig or bait, the leader folds under the fish and the hook(s) find a hold on the white part or fringe. Most body hooked halibut are on jigs that I see. I have been anchoring and slowing down, clip a chum bag on the chain, light a pipe or cigar, bait up and draw them into you. Bigger better fish on the hook, dinks drifting. I use a nylon cable lock to secure a six inch squid (3lb block of frozen in the specialty meat department $8 about sixty total) once through the hook then cable lock it to the leader above the hook.

They certainly seem to cover "food", if the number of belly hooks while jigging is any indication. Sometimes it pretty much forces you to stop jigging. We very rarely tail/gut hook fish that big though...

Since pics are required, this one was in about 80 feet of water if I recall correctly. Caught on a 16oz jig while drifting. Did not bump another halibut anywhere in the area, and in fact it was the only fish of the weekend (bear hunting).

Whatever they're doing down there I believe that being slow on the hookset, not reacting to the very first bite you feel, is what ends up with body hooked halibut.

My technique is to take a crank or two on the reel, tighten the slack, load the rod, then set the hook. If it's shallow you can just lift the rod to load it up before setting the hook. Either way results in more hook ups and rarely, if ever, a body hooked fish.

When a decent sized halibut commits to eating a jig they'll take the whole thing in their mouth. If they feel something out of sorts they'll spit it out. If you're slow on the hookset and they've spit it out that's what results in a body hooked fish ... in most cases.

I'm a firm believer in using the lightest jig head you can get away with. Six or eight ounce heads will catch more fish than heavier heads. With heavy heads they don't hang on to the jig as long. A big chunk of lead doesn't feel right and they'll spit it out quicker than a with lighter jig.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that halibut won't bite a heavier jig. They can't tell the difference until they get it in their mouth but having a few more seconds to react to a bite, before they spit it out, is what makes the difference. Bigger fish may not be as sensitive to heavier heads but average Cook Inlet chickens are.

Another thing that helps to reduce missed bites and actually catches more fish is less jigging. One or two sweeps of the rod, "jigging it", and then let it sit for fifteen seconds or more. The jigging motion attracts fish and when the jig is stationary, with just the tail swimming, they'll latch on to it.

Halibut will hit a jig that's rising and falling but pausing it seems to tease them. It's also easier to detect a bite when you're not jigging up and down as much. When you pause keep the rod tip low so it's easier to sweep the rod and set the hook.

I've seen larger halibut appear on the fish finder, jig once or twice, and then a second or two later ... boom ... hook up. It works.

Halibut is absolutely the finest eating fish I have ever had.
Congrats on your catch!

I was using a 'slove. That's what we call a solvkroken. It's a norweigan cod jig. They are stainless steel filled with lead and they have a large treble hook attached. I have only caught one halibut in the mouth with one, my biggest so far which was 140lbs. I snag 90% of the fish I catch with these jigs. I am a pretty aggressive jigger, I will rip it up as much as 7-8ft and I slowly drop it back down to the bottom. If I am on rocks I will "tap" them by quickly raising and lowering the rod tip a foot or less. I believe this puts out vibrations in the water that really draws them in, especially yelloweye and lingcod. They just can't stand it.

I went fishing a couple of days ago. Landed a chicken about 20lbs and lost a decent fish, maybe 70lbs or so. I was by myself and tried to gaff the fish and pull it into the boat but as soon as I hit it with the gaff it went ballistic. Ended up throwing the hook and I couldn't keep the gaff in it. I was using a wally whale jig with a strip of salmon belly from a carcass from eggtake last year. Also caught two spiny dogfish and had 2 other nice fish on but lost them both. I normally fish with the slove because I hardly ever lose what I hook up, but the wally whale glows in the dark and has a skirt on it. The lightest jig I use is the wally whale which is 16oz, the sloves are either 17.5oz or 21oz. I use the heavier ones in high wind/drift situations.

Go to Sportman's Warehouse in Anchorage and pick up some Kalin's Big n Grubs in 020 pearl white and get some 8 oz jig heads with the big hooks. I rigged them with ~ 40" of 175 lb test mono leader using crimp connectors and a heavy stainless swivel to tie onto. I painted the jig heads in pearl white and added a stick on eye. Put a dab of sardine flavored Smelly Jelly paste on the jig and you've got my #1 favorite halibut jig.

I tried lots of different types of plastic grubs in different colors, sizes, shapes (single tail and double tail), metal jigs, swimbaits ... you name it and I probably tried it. I finally settled on white pearl Big n Grubs.



For a long time I used smaller plastics in 6" or 8" and they work fine and catch just as many fish but I switched to larger size grubs and hooks to avoid ping pong paddles and small chickens. In the Cook Inlet there are so many little ones that when you avoided the smallest fish you didn't have to weed through as many little ones to wind up with decent keeper size halibut.

Smelly Jelly...priced this stuff by the oz? I have made up a mixture and will try it out. Save the oil you just cooked fish in, add that to the salt/sugar/slime goo that you just brined your salmon to smoke, add to that the milk/salt juice you soaked your herring in and Huzzah! A gallon of smelly jelly for free. Clip a small plastic jar to your anchor chain...Will report later this week.

Smelly Jelly works and a little bit (pea size) lasts a long time. I've tried liquid scents and they wash off and lose their effectiveness far quicker. One 4 oz jar of jelly will last for a couple of seasons as long you don't let it spoil ... and it will if you leave in the sun forever.

Using scent is better than no scent and some scents are better than others. I've tried different types/scents of Smelly Jelly for halibut and sardine was my favorite followed closely by squid.

The guy I take fishing will spread it on crackers and eat it.