Father’s Day Fish Tale

I was down in Bakersfield for the long Father's Day weekend but it was stupid hot and I needed a break from the inlaws so drove back to the coast to an area where I have found halibut before when down there.

First spot I jumped in was churned up and surgy and water was surprisingly cold...no fish seen and I got out after a few hours.

Kept my wetsuit on and put my parka on top and drove a little ways to another area.

Water warmer and clearer over there but still wasn't seeing anything...

Finally right when the sun was going down and the water was getting pretty dark, I spooked a nice fish...

Usually when I spook a halibut they take off very fast and I have a split second to decide whether I am going to take a shot at them before they are gone...many times I miss these shots on the fly, but I have still landed quite a few this way over the years so will take the shot when I can...

This one fortunately did not bolt with the same quickness that most do and I realized I had time to actually take a decent shot at it...

I swung my gun around and pulled the trigger and could tell right away that I got her good when she stopped mid flight and started doing headshakes...

Took a few hard kicks and got my hand in her throat, made sure shaft was all the way through and headed up to the surface.

Bled, brained, gilled her right away and put her on my belt stringer and headed back to shore.

Back at truck I took a few pics, got a weight and length (18.44 pounds and 35 inches) and loaded her into the cooler and headed back to Bakersfield.

The next morning the fish and ice were still cold and safe in the Orion and I had Jayme take a pic of me with the fish and my lucky Amadeo hat. Then a few pics with my baby niece Lucy Jane before filleting.

The shaft hit her in the meaty part of the shoulder but angled through and down and came out right by her underside pec fin...it also grazed her spine when going through and that stunned her enough to stop excessive thrashing and there was very little meat damaged when I cut her up. I just cut around the hole and used the odd shaped pieces for a ceviche.

The inlaws loved the fresh fish feast and I got a break from the heat, a dive, a fish, and some brownie points.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Nice one Jim!

Luv the pics on the cuts, thx u for that!  Nice fish indeed!

Great fish, story, and fillets.

Speaking of fillets, how do you get such a clean cut next to the top and bottom fins? That's the part that always gives me the most trouble...

Awesome Big Jim

Awesome!  You are an inspiration, bro.   

nice, love the  photos

Nice fish Jim!!!

Dang nice butt Jim! 

Thanks guys!

Speaking of fillets, how do you get such a clean cut next to the top and bottom fins? That's the part that always gives me the most trouble...

Hhmmm….I guess I try and get knife as flat as possible and focus on not letting it ride up when getting that last bit closest to the edges cut?

Between the main fillets and the actual fins is the engawa frills...I try and cut those off along with the fillets, and then they usually pull off just by hand. I eat the frills as a snack usually while fileting, but can set aside for whatever purpose you want...they look a little weird but are very tasty.

On a related side note...often (especially on fatter fish) I find that the outside edges of the fillets are significantly thinner than the center portions...this can be a little problematic when cooking, and I like my fillets as even a thickness as possible....if I am making a ceviche (which I often do) and have plenty of fillet meat, I will trim this outer most strip off and add to the ceviche "scrap" pile of fillet tips etc.

Few pics attached from some other fish I got earlier this year...

Can see in Pic 1 that the top side fillets on the right have that much thinner, more translucent outside edge...

In Pic 2, on this fish I trimmed off that thinner part of the top fillets and added those strips to ceviche pile.

Pic 3 shows the fillets of both fish, ceviche scraps, and head and collars all bagged up and ready. 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Nice job Jim.

Your scoring on all the fish food groups. 

Yum yum , halibut.

I'm do. I caught and released four shaker halibut today.