NON YAK pb halibut 8/30/20

Headed out of the gate yesterday on a buddy's boat with him and another friend. We picked up live anchovies in SF and headed out to drift the North Bar, where sport and commercial boats have been having good success. Another friend put his 5 clients on limits the previous day by 2:00.

We set up and began our first drift in towards the beach-not much happening. Next drift brought up a couple of shakers and scratched baits. We start reeling up to reset, as we're kind of deep in 60 FOW. I get one rod stowed then pick up my second rod. I feel weight and am delighted there's a fish on the other end-I got skunked on this boat last week.

Fish has some weight and is sticking to the bottom, as most big halibut do. I got it a few inches up then felt the first headshakes. It is at that moment I realized this was going to be a nice fish. The headshakes felt like over a foot in each direction, pumping the rod violently. It was not easy to get this fish off the bottom. Once my buddy asked if I was snagged and I pulled with my hand on the spool just to check and got more cray headshakes-nope not snagged!!

As I'm bringing this fish up, I'm constantly thinking that something is wrong. I gotta be tied up in someone else's gear and weights in order for the fish to feel this heavy. Every 10 feet of line I get on the spool dumps off almost immediately with each run. Constant worry of drag malfunction-I'm checking it every run to make sure it's set right and it is. I just can't accept that this is a fair-hooked non-tagled halibut from it's weight.

I usually gaff fish, but my buddy is more confident with the net. He is very proficient at netting fish and since he was going to have to help me, I let him decide how he wanted to land it. I told him we were getting closer and to set up next to me. Swivel comes into view and then we all see a huge pale shape gliding up towards the boat.

CRAP a bat ray. The large pale shape looked just like the underside of a bat ray wing. Then we saw the mouth and all gasped. My buddy set up the net and scooped it under the largest halibut any of us had every seen. The fish went nuts and almost jumped out of the huge salmon net. My buddy is almost dragged overboard while trying to keep the fish in the net at the side of the boat.

The Frabill net handle bends on the rail as we lift it over and straddle the fish. Quick! We need rope! Grab a length-thread oh so carefully through the gills, out the mouth. Tie it up and bleed the beast.

I have spent so much effort, countless hours and dollars pursuing a fish like this. I haven't landed a large (over 15 lb) halibut in two years! This more than makes up for that. I feel so grateful to encounter a fish like this and the stoke level will be high for some time to come.

Oh and we finished up with limits for 3 including another fish over 30 lbs

how do you get the photos straight on this thing?

That's a monster! What are the dimensions?

What a Slab!!!

how do you get the photos straight on this thing?

You probably need to rotate the pics to the left and save then re-upload.

That's a monster! What are the dimensions?

47” about 45 lbs

Absolute PIG!!!!!! Way to go!!!  That is a fish of a lifetime!

how do you get the photos straight on this thing?

Killin' it this year!  Good stuff!  I straighten my pictures by editing them as simple as hitting the image quality icon on the iphone8 photo app then "done".  They seem to upload straight after that...

Congrats on the catches guys    Thanks for the report and pictures Oysterer.

Great catches! Thanks for sharing! Maybe one day I will take my plastic center console to try there. 

Barn freakin' door ! What a catch.

Congrats! That's a Cali halibut of a life time.

Wow  adrenaline fish!!! Congratulations

how do you get the photos straight on this thing?

Killin' it this year!  Good stuff!  I straighten my pictures by editing them as simple as hitting the image quality icon on the iphone8 photo app then "done".  They seem to upload straight after that...

Thanks Eddie-being unemployed does wonders for the fish game

That's an amazing fish, man!  Well done.

Norm