Great day offshore in the pacific northwest

[Max Doubt]

Took a few friends and headed to the coast for our local offshore season opener for halibut. It's only open for 4 days a year (halibut) and staying home just isn't an option. The location is just south of Neah bay Washington, and about a 5 hour drive with a 45 minute ferry ride added in.

Fished Thursday and Saturday for Halibut 35 miles offshore in 700' of water. Limited on both halibut and ling cod both days.

The weather was especially nice and the fishing was very good, can't wait to do it again.

Here's a shot of our catch from one day.

[Bryan Young]

Wow, now that looks like you guys had a lot of fun.

700 ft. that's a lot of line to recover.

[Max Doubt]

You're correct Bryan, it's a long ways to reel, but when a fish is tugging it kinda takes your mind off that part. Bigger fish can take up to 15 minutes to reel in, but IMO that's the fun part.

[Alto Mare]

Ted, I need to pay a visit one of these days, very nice. That's a lot of depth, what gear did you use? Any powered reels?. Thanks for sharing Bud. Sal

[Irish Jigger]

Nice catch there. Four days is a very short season for the halibut, are they endangered or what?
I too would be interested in the tackle you used to catch halibut at that depth.
Thanks for sharing.

[john2244]

Great catch !!!  Halibut and lingcod are great eating fish.  I also was wondering about the rods and reels you use for this type of fishing. I believe out depth limit here in Southern California is 360' .

John

[broschro]

Those are some very nice fish!

[Max Doubt]

No electric reels on my boat Sal......perhaps when I get a few more grey hairs I'll consider it.

Most guys are using a 6' rod, 20-50 lb class with a big enough reel to hold 500 yards of 65 to 80 lb microfilament (spectra, jerry brown, etc.) Believe it or not a 113H senator is the most commonly used reel for this deepwater fishery. Even most the charter boats use them. Says a lot about the use and abuse those good old senators can put up with. The 113H will hold over 500 yards of 80 lb spectra, and we don't use a topshot of mono, just straight up spectra or jerry brown solid core.

Our gear is mostly pipe jigs with a 12/0 treble hook in the middle, we also use the norwegian cod jigs (1,000 gram version).

If I go again next week I'll take some pics of the gear, tackle, and hopefully more fish.


BTW, halibut are not endangered, we are just very over-regulated by the feds who grant us a small quota and give the rest (over 90%) to the tribes and commercial fishers........Last year we had 8 total days to fish halibut, the recreational quota was around 150,000 pounds.

[Alto Mare]

No electric reels on my boat Sal......perhaps when I get a few more grey hairs I'll consider it.

Ted me and are about the same age, we where born on the year of stainless steel , they don't make them like us anymore . Nice to hear that those Senators are showing who's the boss up there.

[seaeagle2]

Nice lookin fish, the ocean separates the real hard core guys from us that fish just the straights. We "drove around" from Edmonds down over the Narrows on Sunday morning, and there were a ton of boats headed back, then we ran to the Lowe's in Silverdale and there were still a bunch of boats.  By the time we took the ferry from Kingston back to Edmonds Sunday night, there were no boats on the ferry at all.  Do you guys fish out of Neah Bay, or La Push ?

[Bryan Young]

John,

I believe for Pacific Halibut, there is no depth reg, bu for Calif. Halibut, there's a depth reg.

[Pirogue]

BTW, halibut are not endangered, we are just very over-regulated by the feds who grant us a small quota

I'm tired of ridiculous federal regulations on recreational fisherman. 8 days to fish halibut??? I thought we had it bad with the red snapper regulations in the Gulf, 40 day season, 2 fish per person.

[john2244]

Thanks Bryan.  I was really thinking about the depth limit for rockfish here in SO. CA.
John

[seaeagle2]

And, before we get our days in the Straights, the Tribal and Commercial Longliners get their seasons first.....

[Max Doubt]

Seaeagle, we are fishing out of LaPush.

BTW, the straits (strait of juan de fuca) is only longlined by the tribes, there is no non-tribal fishery inside the straits. The bummer is that a whole bunch more tribes from puget sound decided they wanted to start longlining this year to get their share. The result of which is an overfished area that is raked clean of most the halibut prior to the recreational opening.