The *SECRET* to catching Halibut last week...

[Mr. Fisherman]

Well, better late than never.

I think I figured out why some boats left for the dock or the Rock pile early while others, ahem , fished all day without much luck.

As those of you know that fished last weekend, there was a good size swell. This lifted our offerings off the bottom for all but the trough. That said I have found that the people that caught the majority of the fish in those tuff conditions used a technique that I should have put together sooner. The secret is, feed enough slack to keep your bait on the bottom for all but the peak swell and maybe even more. This did cost a lot of gear but fish came to the boat and that's why we were all there right ?
One boat using this technique reports loosing 7 rigs for one angler on the first day alone but 4 fish came to the boat on his rod fishing this way .

I sure hope this helps should we fish similar conditions again soon .
I plan to stock up on rigs and weights and take an extra reel at a minimum for the next trip :grin: .

I hope this helps,

Ray

[Sensei-san]

Maybe for you but we used a commercial style rig and got them. It is similar to how they fish for salmon in California. Ask THREEMUCH. He knows how they mooch for salmon down there.

In rough conditions you will loose a lot of gear anyway. It is tough to tap the bottom and not get hung up. That is where tuffline excels. It gives you better feel. You are right about trying to stay on the bottom. Also if you get hung, try letting some slack out then reel back. Sometimes it will allow the gear to roll a bit and get out of behind that rock.

[Threemuch]

I think J-hooks, threaded through the bait may be the way to go in the rough stuff. It's been confirmed many times that halibut will chase bait 10-20' or more off the bottom. The problem with a circle hook is that after the take, you must let the fish swallow the bait and slowly tighten it up to pull the hook to the corner of the fishes mouth. Hard to do in a big swell.

There are lots of mooching techniques Sensei-san. Which one do your refer to? My favorite is the threaded bait, with the hook coming out the eye of the baitfish. Two half hitches of the leader around the tail and send her down. Can't be done with wire, but is easily performed with dacron on a spreader.

KB

[Sensei-san]

THREEMUCH.... SHhhhh!!! you give away big secret!!! Works great with black label herring too. Also the sliding.... I better keep quiet. No more secret then.

[Capin' Dan]

I have to second the types of hooks. I just use the biggest salmon hooks that I can find and then either use a wire leader or 30 lbs salmon mooching leader. I have even plug cut my herring. I do try to stay off the bottom a few feet. the last day of the season we managed to get our two fish at 18 miles out just like we were mooching for salmon Its nice pulling them up from 180 feet instead of 490 feet. Circle hooks I have heard good things about but they just do not work for me.

Dan!

[tailchaser]

The last day down here was sketchy at best for a lot of people. We hammered them though. 4 fish in the box all over 43" and biggest was 51". We used a little different bait than most though. We were dropping shad fillets down and it usually didn't take longer than 10-15 min. for someone to hook up. I should've taken pics of some of the fish we hooked to prove a point some people don't agree with me on. We offset circle hooks a great measure and set the hook. We were getting the fish dead smack in the cheek area behind the mouth. Which defies traditional circle hook theories of only getting them in the lips or by being swallowed. They defintely were not getting off the hook. We only lost one fish out of 25 to the boat.

One of the charters here, I won't mention who, but they were skunked fishing within a mile of me. 24 people on board and a big goose egg :depressed: so it was a bad weekend down here for some also. Water was beautiful.

tc

Capin' Dan,

Have you had fish cut 30 lb leader with their teeth?

We used two 10/0 salmon hooks wtih 100 lb mono leader tied like salmon muching rigs and never lost fish to cutoffs.

Were only fishing 10-40 fathoms and the J hooks worked well. I had friends that used circle hooks but I didn't like them. They might be better when fishing 100 fathoms like it looks like you have been doing. Are you realy fishing this deep?

We also caught butts off of the bottom, once about 50 feet up.

We would use downrigers ocasonly when we fished deep (35-40 fathoms). We would drift with the downriger ball about 20' above the bottom and a 4 oz banana weight above our leader.

[ 05-27-2002, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: Keta ]

tailchaser,
Circle hooks usualy hook fish in the corner of the mouth. I don't remember ever seeing one, when i was longlining, hooked in the lips and very few swallowed.

[Capin' Dan]

Yes I would recommend the heavier line. It was what I had. I have been lucky with the 30 lb test leader so far.