Article on halibut mortality rates

Sounds like we shouldnt fish for halibut then cause its just too much for some even tho this has been happening for decades and we're still getting returns....yea I'll stick with my stinger hooks😁

The returns aren't what they used to be. I remember when we had huge wide open bites across the Berkeley flats, with hundreds of boats packed together catching limits, back when it was five. That doesn't seem to happen any more. I think larger hooks and baits would be a good place to start.

When was that?  And did it last year on year?  For how many years?

If you do a bit of research on Halibut, there are very definite peak years, with many down years in between.  With the amount of juvies being seen now, we seem to be in an up cycle.

-Allen

Early to mid '90s. We had a family fishing boat, and did a lot of bay and ocean fishing. The salmon runs were awesome back then and so were the halibut. I assumed halibut had always been that abundant, but maybe our boat years just coincided with a peak in the naturally oscillating halibut cycle.