Fishing...

S

shindig

New member
Jul 21, 2012
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Seattle, WA
Just got home from the last day of halibut fishing in WA state and it was nuts. You're only allowed to catch them for 10 days in the spring and that's it, and you're allowed 1 per person/day.

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You leave at 4am and it takes 4 fucking hours to drive each way to the fishing spot, today was rough going out, luckily I stopped at walmart and bought sweatpants/hoody and rubber pants/jacket for me and my lady.

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A little after 8am you get to the middle of nowhere and there are a dozen other boats floating together.

It was mind blowing once you get there. It's 750' deep and takes 3-4 full minutes for your weight to get to the bottom. Only 7 people fish at a time out of 14 people on the boat (due to depth and lines crossing), but it's insane how fast it's over.

Literally nobody had bait on the bottom more than 2 minutes before all 7 people have halibut on the line. We drift while they crank in all 750' with a 50lb doormat and 1 lb lead weight. Then the other 7 people get on and he goes back over the spot. You drop your line and as soon as it hits the bottom it just feels like you're snagged and it starts to pull and you spend 15 minutes reeling that fucker up.
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Then I caught the smallest fish so I got to go again hehe and the 2 deckhands and captain kept the smallest fish and let 3 of us catch bigger ones.

And after 45 minutes everyone (14) had a halibut, 3 people caught a second halibut (17 on boat), and we started heading back.

Then we spent the rest of the day catching big lingcod and bottom fish(sea bass, cabazon, etc).

I had a big mofo on the line then ended up realing up a 14" fish (kelp greenling) and was like what/how the fuck and the deck hand pulled it up and tapped on the captain's window and he was like throw it back in just like that, a ling cod was chewing on it... no shit as soon as it hit the bottom I reeled it up a couple feet and just held it for 30 seconds and bam I had a big heavy fish on the line.

The captain said reel it really slowly because the lingcod isn't hooked, they just hang on to it and no shit it came all the way to the surface and he netted it like a pro. I caught 2 more doing the same shit in 30 minutes.
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I can't wait for salmon season, and they go out for albacore tuna in august-sept.
 


Looks sweet, One per person? Really? Can't you just rent a boat yourself and catch like 15 and go home? I fish around here with buddies and what not and we spend the whole day with our line and sinker routine. I remember getting a few sea bass and a bunch of other small fish, if its too small we generally put it back into the water but overall i like the calmness of fishing where you can talk and just be away from it all for a while.
 
i'd get pissed at being on such a regimen. i've been fishing my whole life & would have trouble with somebody saying "ok in 7 minutes you can put your line in that 3 meter box and then we'll all just sit and stare at it until something happens; if nothing happens in 43 minutes, then its somebody else's turn to stare at that 3 meter box for 60 minutes...."

no thanks. that ain't fishing.
 
n8800, it's a bag limit to stop people catching 15 at a time and ruining it for everyone, forever. It sounds like the protection works if it takes minutes to hook one.

Yeah, I'm not a much of a fan of deep sea charters either. So much lead and such heavy tackle that when you do finally feel a fish there's no challenge. Just wind it in. Last time I went out I left the lining of my guts on the ocean floor lol. Good times oO.
 
drave said:
i'd get pissed at being on such a regimen. i've been fishing my whole life & would have trouble with somebody saying "ok in 7 minutes you can put your line in that 3 meter box and then we'll all just sit and stare at it until something happens; if nothing happens in 43 minutes, then its somebody else's turn to stare at that 3 meter box for 60 minutes...."
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He didn't say anything about a timed regimen like you're describing, just that only 7 people could have their lines in the water at a time to keep from getting tangled.

n8800 said:
Can't you just rent a boat yourself and catch like 15 and go home?
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You'e not heard about the collapse of fish stocks all around the world?
 
Nice work! Fishing is awesome. I haven't been on a big charter like that for years though because it's a long ass day and you're spending almost half the time you have to fish untangling lines with the 18 other people on the boat.

That, and I don't eat fish, so like Fraggler said, if you go on a charter you're not going to fight, you're going to reel in fish. Not much of a challenge.

But the pics look great. Nice job! Def need to snap some shots of your salmon fishing trip!
 
Yeah there was no waiting, I mean I was in the second group but seriously we were waiting for for 3 minutes while people got their line to the bottom then rods just started bending over and you're watching people reel in a 50-80lb halibut, then it's your turn.

Then when we went bottom fishing they anchor up and you can fish from wherever you want and it was more fun due to not knowing what you were reeling in and you repeatedly are catching stuff. Bottom fishing was on a lightweight rod. 20lb test or so.


The fish and game actually collects all the carcasses off all the charter boats to research/track. If you get caught with more than 1, which they check every boat coming in like flies on shit, obviously since everyone out there is fishing for halibut, you lose your boat, you pay $10k per fish, and you lose the right to get a fishing license or hunting license for decades..... not to mention all our fishing/shellfish/crabbing/shrimping here is bountiful because of the regulations.

I do lots of river fishing here cause we have crystal clear rivers coming out of the mountains full of steelhead, salmon, and trout. Lots of fun. But shit the charter was nice, you show up, don't have to bring anything and you leave with a cooler of fish.

Simple and cheaper than trying to do it yourself.... 5-9' swells, can't see land, out in the middle of ocean, we had water coming over the top of a 50-60' foot charter boat, let alone anything I could afford to rent and put gas in...

When I lived in San Diego I used to do overnight tuna trips and it was some of the best experiences of my life.
 
Killer! As a kid, my dad caught an 80 pound Halibut once that he said took him and his buddy about 2 hours to reel it up... we ate Halibut for 4 years.
 
TeeBird said:
Does fish and game return the fish to you so you can eat it, or sell it? I know Halibut gets a pretty nice price per pound at our local fish market.
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They just take the remains after cleaning. If you wanted to clean your own fish I'm sure they would just want to measure it and record stuff about it and let you take it.

The fish spines/heads are divided into 2 groups. The halibut goes with the fish and game and they measure it, count it, who knows what else.

We stopped at a floating barge with an office on it before going to the dock and dropped off the trashcan of bottom fish skeletons/heads because many are tagged somehow and released at some point in the past, so the researchers go through the cleaned remains and get their tags back and track stuff about the fish... pretty elaborate system.

They fluctuate fishing seasons in sectors across the puget sound region and base fishing season durations off populations. It seems to work well....
 
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN2gMP3Q2Z4&t=2m0s]Peoria Carp Hunters - YouTube[/ame]

Anyone try this yet?
 
Thats a lot of halibut.

One of my favs to eat; catching it is hard. To long of a ride into the ocean; how far out did your group go.
 
Rusky said:
Thats a lot of halibut.

One of my favs to eat; catching it is hard. To long of a ride into the ocean; how far out did your group go.
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Well next time I'll go out of neah bay rather than westport because we drove probably 40+ miles along the coast then went out for a little while after land was out of site probably 10-12 miles.

They said they go 80 miles for tuna though and you sleep overnight so I'll probably check it out. The captain was awesome, had us on the fish first and we were the last back to the harbor aka fished the longest, and he was 24 years old hah. he bought the boat last year, 50-60' fishing boat.
 
Neah Bay

My father used to run charters out of Neah Bay before it became something more mainstream. He'd winter down in Gig Harbor which you'd understand if you've seen the Neah Bay breakwater after winter storms.

Cool stories of living with the Makah in the day, I'm glad I was able to have him share with me his youthful stomping grounds. Good trip for the two of us, I'm trying to do the same with my kids.
 
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