Friday Fish Story

[AlasKen]

Last Friday my son and I decided to try dropping some shrimp pots in PWS.  Had a new spot recommended.  Weather was wet but water was between 3' and 1'.  Wind came up and made open water a little uncomfortable but doable.  We dropped pots in about 500' on open points both sides of a bay.  After a 6 hour soak we had exactly 0 shrimp.  Kind of disappointing and a spot we will not return to.  While waiting for pots to soak we gave some rock fishing a try in some protected coves.  We caught a few small rockfish shallow so release was easy.  A couple of baby halibut that were also released.  Tried behind an island near Port Nellie Juan and I kept a couple of decent rockfish, ok kind of small but at least big enough to fillet.  About an hour before we were ready to pick up pots Justin hooked into something of size in about 50' of water on light tackle.  After a 45 minute battle we got a Halibut to the side of the boat that based on prior experience we put at close to a century (100).  We have made an agreement that we will not boat a halibut over 100 lbs anymore and allow them to continue to breed.  It was a bit painful to watch it swim off but it seems the right thing to do.  These big halibut are getting more rare all the time in PWS and I hope this cow will make lots of babies for me to catch.  We made out tunnel opening with 5 minutes to spare.  Life was good even if a bit soggy.  I have some video .  It is hard to get a sense of size in the water as nothing to judge it by, hence the reason for calling it a fish story.  Caught on a MH Whuppin stick from Cabalas and a Charter Special with Alan's handles and Dawns Drag washers.  There was a lot of creaking and cracking going on with that rod.  That fish ended up towing my 24' boat against a slight wind about 100 yards.  We were right up on the rocks you can see in the background when we started.  I was pretty tired holding the camera.  Ken 

[RiverAngler]

Nice catch! Good on both of you for the release.

thanks for sharing that.

Ralph

[mo65]

Way ta go!

[Dominick]

Ken, cool of you to let that big mama go.  Very funny arms tired from holding camera.  My biggest halibut was maybe 10 lbs.  Dominick

[David Hall]

Nice work there, that's a beautiful fish I commend you for releasing her.  Keep up the good times.

[spc7669]

Nice job releasing that fish. 

[ChileRelleno]

I keep looking for a LIKE button. 

[RiverAngler]

Me too!

[MFB]

Great fish well done...

Regards

Mark