I had been wanting to go out and get some halibut this year. I took a few days off and was rar'in to go. Buddy o' mine from work has this new (used) 26' sea swirl. Well as things turn out it was my sons 12th B-day last wed(the 10th) I stayed home for dinner, got him off to bed, kissed my wife and was on the road by 9pm. Drove to Newport and pulled into the lot by 11:30pm, found where his boat was berthed, set the cell ph. alarm and caught a few winks. fairly uneventful getting up and hooking up with him to go pound those flatties. He had his father-in-law along so the 3 of us are in the floatilla that left the jaws at first light. We follow a friend of his out to the banks. After some serious pounding we took we get all rigged up ready to drop lines. This being his first time on the salt with his boat was a learning experience, nothing major just working out a few kinks. Those are to be described in a bit. Now I have been out in some rough weather, but this was as about as bad as I had been in. I'm a trooper I'm gonna do this or else! We no more get set up and drop our lines and then the father-in-law gets hit with sea sickness. Man-o-Man did I feel bad for him. He handed off his rig to my buddy while he is still trying to keep the boat even in the drift. We go floating on one drift then we move back up for another. I drop down then POW I have a bite, I've pulled up some mid 30's to about 40" and I tell ya this bad boy didn't want to come up. Kept peeling it back to the bottom, Like I said I'm gonna do this. I even meditated all week on how this fishy was gonna look, and how he was gonna feel allll the way to the surface. Sooooo, we finally see color. I tell ya this thing was 55-60 inches at least. All of my preperations were paying off. my buddy grabs the gaff, and makes 2 tries at my beautiflly ugly halibut. I'm thinking man how is he gonna wrestle with that on this ocean? doesn't he have anything bigger? Well he definately didn't hear what I was thinking becaues Mr. Flattie got [petunias!] and snapped the 80# mono from the leader like nothing. UGHHHHH! what a charlie brown feeling that went right through me, then my next thought is oh well that's part of the game out here. Next Thing I know my friend, my buddy , my pal who was kind enough to let me tag along says "I'm Not Letting That Happen Again!" he reaches up into the bunks and pulls out a nice, long, extra sharp SPEAR with detachable point. Excuse me! where did that come from? If I had known about your sticker there I would have insisted in letting him get tired on the surface. Well he says to me "You had the drag set too tight!" "Oh!" says I, as I now understand that we can both blame each other and feel ok about it... as the waves pound us some more he nails a 45# flattie and after abit hands the pole to me and says I can't stear and reel, help me. Ok thinks I ,wondering if I can make it look like and accident loosing his.... What am I thinking, Its a Halibut, A big one , not as big as mine but definately a good one. We get him in utilizing the spear. we made 2 more passes but nothing.. at least we had blood in the boat, and some unwanted chum, but thanks to a hose and self bailing holes it was pretty well gone later on. On the way in the engine started making funny noises, he later discovers a fuel leak problem and a corroded cap causing mis fires. I napped in the afternoon and found out he was not gonna be able to go back out fri. oh well Momma's got a honey do list for me that is getting longrer all the time. It was great to get out there. I do love the salt.
Dave
Just gotta tell ya!
bait boy
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