Go Fish….just for the halibut!

Day 61 – Monday, August 12

It’s a good thing we cleared out the freezer yesterday!  We are bringing home 32 pounds of halibut!!!

Our fishing trip in Homer, (the halibut capital of the world) was a tremendous success.  There were 19 people from the rv caravan on this boat and we filled the entire boat.  We left early in the morning—6:20 am!! 

The boat was “The Whistler”, a 50 foot fishing boat, headed up by Captain Steve, and two deckhands. 

We each had to have a fishing license, and each one of us was limited to 2 halibut.   Once you caught your limit, you could continue to fish, but had to throw them back.   Everyone caught their limit of 2 fish each!  One of the deckhands kept a tally of how many we had caught by marking on the window.  One of our group caught a starfish, which looked beautiful, but it fell off the hook as she was pulling it into the boat.

It’s a good thing we brought our rainsuits, because the rain continued throughout the morning.   The boat traveled out around Kachemak Bay, about an hour and half before we anchored the first time.  Everyone was prepared with dramamine and soda crackers. (Jim & I used the patch) and nobody got seasick, thank goodness.

The deckhands helped prepare the poles, and baited them with herring.  We had a 2lb. sinker on the line, and dropped it until it hit the bottom…about 150 feet.  Then we would have to sway our poles to create movement to attract the fish.

It was pretty exciting when they started biting.  We would reel them close to the boat and yell “Color”, meaning the fish was close enough to see.  The deckhands would run over and help get it in the boat, either pulling the line over the side, or by grabbing them with a big gaffe hook.  

Then, once the fish was in the boat, they would bop it on the head with a club, slit it behind the gills and throw it into the bench box. 

When the fish quit biting in one area, we moved to another…three times in all.   Here is Jim in action, reeling in his first fish!

Halibut are pretty ugly.  They are a flatfish and stay at the bottom.  They have a white underbelly and a brown topside. Shortly after birth, one eye migrates to the top of the head, so it looks like they are lopsided.

Once everyone caught their limit, we headed back to port.  The weather finally began to clear up on our way back. It wasn’t cold (high 50’s, low 60’s), but it was wet all day.

As we were headed back, the deck hands filleted the fish right on the boat and threw the leftovers (innerds, and skin) to the arctic terns who were following the boat and ready for clean up duty!

We ended up with over 300 lbs of fish (after it was filleted)!  The processing company met our boat at the dock and took orders on packaging, freezing, or mailing.  Several people had theirs mailed home,  but we plan to have ours flash frozen and take it with us.  Everybody got 16 lbs each—so that makes 32 lbs for the Lundcruiser!  It’ll be good eating at our place for awhile!