2-20-16 alameda rock wall halibut fishing

Fellow Anglers,

First off, I am very excited to now be part of NorCal Kayak Anglers. I owe most of my recent fishing success to my good buddy and fishing partner Evan Sebree aka (trutta). I always wondered how he always knew hot fishing reports, and now I know those all came from right here on NCKA. Thanks Evan!

Alright, now this is my first official post so I'd like to share yesterdays fishing success. We were fishing ARW ( Alameda Rock Wall) for Halibut. Evan and I got a late start. we launched at 2 pm. conditions were very nice, 5-7 mph winds and pretty calm waters for the most part. As we were heading out we noticed the wall covered with shore fishermen and we had herd they were all hooking up with jack smelt.
We continued out into the bay and trolled up and down the long wall, close to the rocks and far out, trying to cover as much of the area as possible.
After about an hour of nothing I finally got a really nice hit! But I was unprepared and missed him.At that point I was out a bit further then Trutta was, in 16 ft water and about half way down a ledge drop-off. I continued on trolling after calling Trutta over. 10 minutes later BAM! I hooked up with a pissed off Halibut!I fought him for a few minutes and when I finally got him to the surface the fish went crazy and was not about to get in the net. He flopped, flipped and tried everything possible to avoid my net. Finally after a couple more minutes I landed him on my Hobie.
The halibut ended up being a 25" 6.5 lb halibut (measured by ADF&G) who was checking all fishermen that day by the ramp.
Thanks for reading, more posts to come!
 also check out my youtube video of the action

Nice job on the early season halibut !! 

Alex

Showed me up again. Nice way to introduce yourself to the gang. WTTM 

Congrats on the nice Hali and welcome to NCKA.

As precaution, I didn't see you wearing a PDF. Maybe I am wrong. As a NCKA, when you're OTW always have your PFD. Just a thought, TY

Ichiro

Thanks for sharing your video bro. Congrats on your halibut.

Jedmo

Very nice Halibut and nice video.

A year ago, I met some kayakers (non NCKA) over alameda and they told me Frebuary and March is a good time to catch halibut.

As precaution, I didn't see you wearing a PDF. Maybe I am wrong. As a NCKA, when you're OTW always have your PFD. Just a thought, TY

Ichiro

We both had PFD's, I looked for it on the video and think his must've been between his legs. Not that's it's going to do anybody any good if it's not on...we both need to buy more comfortable floatations devices that way they stay on for the entire trip.

Wes, the safety advice is always worth listening to. You can use the search engine to figure out why safety is such a big concern and to find out what others wear (mostly
Paddle jackets).

Tacos in the net!  Care to describe your trolling set up?

Dude! Congrats on the 1st butt of '16. I loved watching that video because it seems like halibut always do that to me...but when I see videos of other people catching them, they're super calm & easy.

Nice catch.I'm glad to know the butts are starting to show up in the bay already!

Congrats on the ARW 'But!!!!  and Welcome To The Madness!!!  ........it will start to take over all priorities! 

Hell yea Wtg and congrats..I love early season butts!!

Verry nice catch congrats!!
Its great news, ive been waiting for someone to post about the butts being in town.
Hopefully i can get out there this weekend, most likely i will
Just have to be extra sweet with the boss lady to get out there..


Will post a hook up if i do.

Tight lines..

Chuwy

Congrats on the ARW 'But!!!!  and Welcome To The Madness!!!  ........it will start to take over all priorities! 

I quit my last job, and fished for two months. Lol. True story. I met many other unemployed NCKA brothers on the water.
Killed salmon and WSB over those months. Best two months of my life. Welcome to madness. Some call it a addiction...its kinda like
crack but you get to share it with friends.