Halibut Season Mad Dash & Stumble
The Halibut Fleet Heading Out
The 10 hour Halibut Season this year was a struggle for us on the Harvester. We stayed up the night before baiting with octopus, squid and herring. We set 30 tubs of gear (each tub with about 180 hooks) off Cape Arago with the hopes of catching 70 – 100 fish to fill our quota. Weather was great. It was blowing like crazy the day before but it was flat calm on the opening. This time of year our spot is usually pretty good since the Halibut spawn shallower in the spring and move out to deeper water later on. We’re pretty sure the halibut moved out deeper than we figured, since we know some boats who did better out there, so we basically got skunked catching only 10 fish at 230 pounds. That’s one fish an hour plus all the prep time it was pretty dire. Since you only get 10 hours you basically have make an educated (or not so educated) guess where they’ll be for those few hours when you are allowed to catch them. We guessed wrong 
Video One of the Few to hit the deck
Now its 2 days of going through the gear and fixing hooks checking the gangion, cleaning the gear really good with soap and bleach and putting it in the barn for the rest of the year. There may be other openings but its too much work for too little fish with the prices being down. We’re moving on to the Tuna which are coming closer in with the warm summer waters.
Stay Tuned for the Albacore Tuna!
-The Harvester Captain & Crew
Another Cool Video: Cabazon Fishing
What a bummer all that work for such a small catch. Do you mind if I ask how big the biggest fish was? Nothing like catching a nice 50-80 halibut. Hopefully tuna will be much better. Wish you the best luck!