Biggest Halibut in Homer this year so far

[tag-a-long]

Nice big halibut... :grin: http://www.ifish.net/uploads/365415219.jpg

[Bob Barthlow]

Thats a true "BARN DOOR" :cheers:

When I lived in Homer, back in 80'-81' a 17 year old girl won the derby that summer with a 378#
.....but the 30#-60# chickens eat way better :wink:

[Gun Rod Bow]

Can I say "nice 'but"

[willametteriveroutlaw]

I hate to say this, not trying to rag on the guy.. But keeping halibut like that isn't good for the fishery. The fishery in homer is on the decline by several reports. Boats are having to go farther and farther to find bigger fish (over 30lbs) The reason for this is that they are harvesting all of the big spawners like her. Biologists say that any fish over a 150lbs is female. These females are the spawners much like our oversive sturgeon. This overharvesting is going to cause a collapse in this fishery in the next 30 years.

[drhall99]

WRO,

I like the big ones, they taste like chicken. All kidding aside, I thought that Alaska was looking at instituting slot limits. Any truth to that?

D.

[RiverRogue]

Guess if that is so, and I am sure there is some truth to it, then why does Homer still promote and advertise to the extent that it does, the Halibut Derby? The sole purpose is to catch the biggest for that big payoff. Seems a better way to go might be to tag a few flatties out there and pay off if they are caught.

[willametteriveroutlaw]

Riverrogue,
Sorry i never caught up with you when you were here.. All hell broke loose at work and i went on an 11 day run of 10-12 hr days. Combine that with my partents being up to visit. I am really sorry about that.
There has been some discussion of a slot limit, but I don't really know (not in the loop). As far as the homer halibut derby goes they are trying to switch it to a tagged fish and target a certain size (computer generated random weight). People come up here though and want to kill a big halibut and a big king, and to help the economy, city councils and better business beaurus (sp) push these tournament and derbies. With out a lot of concern biological concerns.

Now how long until brion lutz and straydog blow up this thread with pages and pages of quotes from each other. :shrug:

[willametteriveroutlaw]

There has been a definite decrease in the # of fish caught over 200lbs ever year. Charter boats used to only travel 45 to an hour to fish (these are generally pretty fast boats) now these boats travel 3 hours plus to chase big fish. The barrens were unheard of as a place to travel to fish 10 years ago. Now they are almost a standard practice on good weather days. 5 to 10 years ago its wasn't uncommon to see a 6 pack boat coming in with 600 lbs of halibut. Now they are lucky to come in with 300lbs of halibut. 60lb used to be the average, now your looking at a 30lb average. Not to say its not an amazing fishery, its just heading for a downturn. Any weekend in the summer you can figure that there are 2000+ halibut a weekend brought into port just in homer. You can figure another 1000 for deep creek, anchor point, and ninilchik. Thats not even counting commercial pressure. plus proably 3000 more a week combined by these ports.

[Bob Barthlow]

WRO is right..... Some of the stuff I see people holding up for pictures now days, would have you being thrown off the dock into the harbor just 10-15 years ago...... But times change....back then Alaska True Cod was a trash fish(we used some for halibut bait).... now it's featured @ Skippers :shrug:

[Respawn]

There certainly could be truth to that theory, however large female halibut make up such a small percentage of the population (less than 5%) that they actually make up a small percentage of the spawning population as well. It is true that they have enormous fecundities, but the majority of the spawning population and recruitment actually comes from the much more abundant 40-60 lb fish. There could be a lot of other reasons as to the supposed lack of large fish in the Gulf.