We took notice of the wind and wave forecast and started planning for this trip about a week out. If all the stars and planets aligned, we could potentially get into salmon, tuna, halibut and bottom fish all in the same trip.
The day before, the forecast improved even more. We were expecting less than a 5 mph wind and swells about 2 ft @ 12 seconds. Well, reality was not quite rainbows and unicorns. 🙂 The wind felt like 10 mph + and the swells were more like 3 ft @ 5 seconds. It was quite choppy. I managed to find a speed and trim that allowed us to travel without getting too beat up.
We first got the salmon rods out and baited up. We tried at depths of about 100 ft and a second at about 150 ft. We think we had one drive by, but after 30 minutes of no action, we called it thinking we would try again on the way in.
Unfortunately, the tuna water pushed too far off shore and we could not fish tuna this day. We got to our first halibut location in about 75 minutes. This was more of a scouting spot. Our buddy boat was a little slower than us so they just continued to push on to our primary halibut spot. Water depth at this location was 700 ft. We dropped our lines and begun our drift. After about 30 minutes, we managed to pull in one good sized black cod (sable fish). We fished another few minutes with no action and decided to pull lines and push on to our primary location.
After another 45 minute run, we arrived at our primary halibut location. Our buddy boat already had two halibut in the boat. The water depth here was 900 ft. We dropped our lines and begun our drift. It took some time to get our first hookup, but it was worth the wait. We had our first halibut in the boat.
We got a couple lings, a few more black cod and a rock fish in about the same time our buddy boat got two more halibut. What the hell were we doing wrong? Fishing the same gear with the same bait on about the same drift line. We started to doubt methods about the same time our one and only manual rod got doubled over and line was getting pulled out. 🙂 FISH ON!!!
After about 20 minutes reeling this manual rod, I was starting to feel a little like an episode of Wicked Tuna. My wife and I took turns reeling. Our arms were starting to feel like wet noodles. This fish was fighting pretty good most of the way up. I do not know exactly how long it took us to reel that fish, but it felt like hours. It was well worth it. It was the biggest halibut of the day. I seriously doubt I will fish halibut again without an electric reel. They are not cheap, but after this, it would be worth every penny. 🙂
Our buddy boat managed to get all five of their halibut and started to head back. At this time, we had three in the boat and were looking for our last. We continued fishing for another 45 minutes before we decided to call it. Unfortunately, this pushed us well beyond our window to fish salmon on the way in.
Going back always seems to be smoother sailing than coming out. Dialed in the trim and flew back at about 30-35 mph. 10 miles from shore, we hit something without warning and cut the engines. It was quite a thud and I was nervous to see the damage. Raised both motors and saw a carcass float off. It looked to be a shark. Luckily, there was no damage to the motors and after a short piss break, we were back on plane and heading in.
It was a great day on the water with some good friends.