Road Trip 2010: Day 35Halibut Fishing in Homer

Tuesday, July 12

Halibut Fishing out of Homer

When we arrived last evening we were told that we could get our fishing licenses at the Resort where we were going for dinner. A number of us decided to do just that and we swamped the poor girl behind the Guest Services desk with our requests. But, those of us who decided not to wait were finally legal to catch two halibut within 24 hours starting at 6 AM Tuesday morning. (We would have to provide our license number to the captain of our charter vessel so as to prove everything was on the up and up should we get stopped.)

Terry and I got up bright and early on Tuesday and, after a quick breakfast were out the door to meet the others as we were to go fishing.

Having rained last night, it was still drizzling at 6 AM as we made our way up the road and past the Mariners’ Memorial to the offices of Inlet Charters. At 6:30 we boarded the Whistler for our excursion out Kachemak Bay and into the waters of first Cook Inlet and then the Pacific Ocean—barely. We ran with the outgoing tide for a little over an hour and a half traveling 35 miles from Homer Spit. And all the other boats were doing the same. Our 57’ was among the largest of the vessels going out on charters this morning. Many were in the 30-40 foot range. Some were smaller. There were a few that peeled off to search for salmon along the way, but a still sizable flotilla of boats ended up in the same general area dragging their lines across the bottom looking for halibut.

When we anchored, the tide was still ripping out of the inlet at a good clip and the mates opted to put three pounds of lead on the line to hold bottom as they made the first few test casts. Satisfied that the line was reaching the bottom, one mate announced that he had a fish on and handed the pole to me and said, “Go to it!”

Now, this was no giant of a halibut. In fact, truth be told, it was one of the smaller ones landed that day. Only around 10 pounds or so. But there was between 150 and 175 feet of line out and an additional 3 pounds of lead out there in a strong current. I pumped and cranked. Cranked and pumped. And, finally got the fish to the boat. The first one landed as several others in our party were just getting their lines over the side. We could only fish 5-6 people at a time due to the strong current creating a possibility of tangled lines, but it didn’t matter. Everyone would get a rotation on the rail before someone would get to try for a second fish. You can catch-and-release as many as you please. There is no size limit. But, you can only keep two.

Despite its smallish size—we were anticipating fish in the 25 pound range—I opted to keep that first fish.

We fished in the same spot during the ebbing tide and the slack that followed. When the tide began to flow in, those who had not yet caught a limit were down to 6 or 7 individuals. Lines were beginning to get tangled, however, because of the changing tide, so the captain decided to run a short distance in to Cook Inlet for the final hour or so of our trip. I’m saying’ “final hour or so” because that’s all it took for the rest of the group to limit out. We did have several folks catch and release smaller halibut so that our total catch was probably closer to 48 or so fish of which 40 ended up on the dock. All the cheeks were put into a pot for the fish fry we’ll have at Seward. Several pounds of filets were also donated to the cause. (Terry and I filled our trailer’s freezer from the four fish we caught and still donated around 4 pounds of filets.)

Cissy (a Good Sam staff member who is part of our tail gunner team) also caught a Pacific gray cod, which the mates threw in the bait box. (Said it was the wrong time of year to go eating them as they are wormy.) And several folks tangled with a huge octopus which seemed to have gathered in two or three lines at once. (I was handed a pole and told to haul in what ever was at the end and found myself in the middle of that mess.) The octopus was a god 6’ long from the tip of its tentacles to the top of its bulbous head, had a basketball sized head and was a bright, bright orange when it to was tossed in the bait box.

In addition to the fishing, we got to watch sea otters, puffins, sea gulls, humpbacked whales (saw half a dozen plus two tails today!), and generally had a great time. Oh, yeah. And it rained a lot. But not when we had lines over the side. It was kinda weird. Put the boat in gear and it rained. Anchor and it didn’t rain while we fished. Weird. Back on land it would be raining off and on all the remainder of the day.

On our way back to the dock, those of us who wished had a very good demonstration of how to fillet a fish and remove the cheeks. There seemed to be a consensus that the young lady did a better job of cleaning the fish but that the young man was faster.

Each fish had been marked as caught to indicate who had caught what. When the mates cleaned the catch, the filets went into a bag with a fisherman’s number on it. Then, when you go off the boat, you got your bag. Terry and I lugged close to 25 pounds of halibut filets back to the trailer. I then took out my knife and proceeded to cut them into serving portions while Terry scrounged up enough Zip-Loc bags to hold our catch and also cleared the freezer of tonight’s dinner (ground beef) and tomorrow’s breakfast (sausages) so as to create space for our catch. We also filled an Igloo Little Playmate with meat for the group fish fry and delivered that to the group of folks doing the cleaning of donated fish over at our leader’s trailer.

Then Terry and I took a short nap before dinner and fought to stay awake after wards so we could eat dinner.

Tomorrow we pull up stakes and head back up the Sterling Highway to the Seward Highway junction. We’ll turn right there and head down to Seward for our fish fry on Wednesday and then, on Thursday we have a tour of the town and Exit Glacier in the morning and then an evening dinner/wildlife cruise out into Resurrection Bay.

Everyone seems to think this is a good spot!

Fish on! and lots of advice (and encouragement) follows.

Jonathon and his grandpa decide if this is a keeper.

Bob takes one of his two halibut.

Me & Terry pose with 4 Halibut

(Disclaimer: While we caught and kept 4 fish, these may not be ours. Ours may have been just a tad smaller. All fish kept ranged from 10 pounds to 25 pounds. Ours were in the 15 pound range...except for that one that was just 10 pounds.)

Gene has to make a decision. Is it a keeper?

Half our catch awaits cleaning by the mates.

The mates clean our catch.

The consensus was that she was superb and wasted little meat, while he was faster but left too much meat on the bone.