Halibut fishing

Day 38

7/28/26 Tuesday

Moose count: 17 (12 cows, 1 bull, 4 calves)

Early start. Our day of halibut fishing started really early. Marianne had the coffee ready at 3:45am and we were instructed that AIS (ass-in-seat) was 4:30am. Bagels and cream cheese, coffee to go, lunch and snacks packed and a bag with extra warm clothes (if necessary) and all of us were out the door and headed north on the Sterling Highway to Homer.

Moose alert. The highlight of the 2 hr drive this early in the morning was watching for moose on the side of the road. And there were plenty especially for the first hour. We counted 13 total in the morning. The biggest surprise was one bull moose!

Another Badger. We arrived perfectly on time to meet the halibut boat at the dock. Departure was 7am. We were met by the captain, a young man nicknamed Badger. (note this Badger has an “e” in it) and his deck hand named Jachin. Both of these guys were young… 22 and 20 respectively.

Captain and crew. Today’s fishing was considered a “Family fishing” day. Family fishing is Tuesdays… there are no commercial trips for halibut on the water on Tuesdays. Marianne & Brian are good friends with the owner Jessica Russell and this is her family fishing business. Because it was “family day” the captain and deckhand got to do some fishing along with us…but they were still on top of helping us get the fish.

Capt. Badger is the oldest son of two that are both boat captains. These young men grew up learning to fish and drive boats… they know their stuff. They’ve been fishing in Alaska in summer their whole lives. They spend winters on the Oregon coast as commercial crab fishermen in Brookings.

Out to sea. We set out to fish in an area called the Barren Islands. You can see on the map below it’s about halfway to Kodiak Islands. It was probably 2 hours to get there. Fortunately for all of us the seas were extremely calm today. The air temp was in the 50’s so we all had warm clothes and layers. We sat in the cabin for the pleasant ride out. Along the way we saw puffins and Orca whales and a few whales spouting.

Shortly before we arrived at our fishing spot the deckhand set up all the rods with sinkers… that look like giant Mr Twisters, 3# hooks and herring for bait. The chum bag is ready to drop on one line.. it is the scent they use to attract the fish.

Fishing time. Limit: 2/person on a non-commercial boat. We were 6 people so that means we could catch as many as 12 fish.

The anchor was set and we were ready to fish. Everyone has a rod to watch. Your job is to watch the tip of the rod and DONT touch the rod until you see the tip drop down drastically. Then you have to snap into action and start reeling quickly to set the hook. Our fishing depth on the first stop was 74 ft. It takes awhile to reel the fish in. Once you get the fish close to the boat if it’s big enough they will harpoon the fish first then they use a gaffing hook to haul the fish up and into the boat. Once it’s in the boat they have a big club to hit them in the head and kill them. Not for the feint of heart.

They kept the fish if it was at least 3O#. * note: these regulations for pleasure fishing are different than a commercial trip.

We started to catch halibut pretty quickly. Over time we caught a few other fish that we threw back to sea. Our biggest of the day was 80 pounds and then they were everywhere between.

New fishing location. We had 5 fish in the well when Badger said it was time to move to another spot. He has a spot with a deep trench that he likes. It was tricky to get the anchor in the right place. The deckhand had to raise and lower the anchor by hand. Pulling it up was like doing 15 deadlifts to get it on the deck. It took three times to get it set perfectly! Oh to be young and strong. This area the lines were set at 140’ deep.

Tangled lines. At our second stop they were having trouble with the lines getting crossed and tangled. It was like playing musical chairs with rods to untwist them. This happened several times until it was eventually solved and we were back on the rod watch. We caught 4 more halibut and the biggest one at this spot.

We ended up catching a total of 9 halibut When you filet you get about 50-60% of the weight in meat. We figured we have approx 200# of halibut.

Picture time. We were done fishing and getting ready to head back to the harbor. At this point all the fish were pulled out of the well for a photo op before filleting.

Badger was showing us the reason for the different colors of the halibut. The light ones were caught on the muddy trench and the darker ones were caught on the rocky bottom at the first stop.

Filet time. We started traveling back and while we were moving the deckhand was busy filleting the halibut.

We finished the boating day spotting seals on the rocks and a gray whale sighting not too far away! We knew there was something big in the water because all these little birds were circling around.

We arrived at the harbor in Homer about 6:30pm. They had to transfer the halibut up the ramp so we could get those 200 pounds of fish to our cars. It was so steep it took 3 guys to push it up the ramp.

We all stopped in the Salty Dawg Saloon for a drink before we had the long drive back to Kenai. The place was busy with fishermen.

Famished. You know those times when you are famished and a burger tastes delicious? We got a smash burger from a food truck that we all inhaled before the drive home.

Casey did a great job driving home as we saw 4 more moose. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.. exhausted… long fun day!

Processing. We actually didn’t process the fish to be frozen until tomorrow but for purposes of keeping all halibut in one blog I’ve put the details in here now. Casey, Brian and Marianne (once again) did all the work of drying, packaging, vacuum sealing and freezing all the halibut. They have use of several freezers across their rental properties. I did learn that salmon, cod and halibut need to be flash frozen before eating to kill the worms that live in the meat.

Tomorrow we should be staying closer to home and going on a river fishing boat up the Kenai River to fish for salmon from the riverbank. A completely different fishing style than our last two trips.

Note* This blog has several videos. If you receive my posts by email you can’t see the videos. If you’re interested you can go to my website. http://www.cinnicrew.com/alaska.