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Picture Of The Month



SD2OR with a trophy fall walleye

Topic: Slow but fun day in Seward capped off by a persona best halibut.  (Read 2703 times)

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kardinal_84

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It's about time I had something post worthy.  Trying to get my mojo back, and finally things come together,  The odd thing is that on this trip, the halibut was just a super great finale to a slow but super fun day with Ryu. I posted most of it on facebook and such, but you can never provide as much detail...nor do I want to really.  Probably best to keep intel to a smaller group like this. 

So we take a water taxi out to Fox Island Spit.  We end up fishing most of the time closer to the entrance of Kayaker's cove.  We used Miler's Landing Water Taxi Service.  $57.50 per person round trip.  I thought that was pretty reasonable.  https://www.millerslandingak.com/water-taxi-calendar.htm

As soon as we get on the water, we are surround by some of the smallest porpoises/dolphins I have ever seen.  Pretty cool.  We immediately find the bait up against the eastern shoreline where it drops off super quickly. Massive clouds of bait in 50 to 100 feet of water.  We troll through it for a few hours and the only thing we hook are 12 to 20 inch long ling cod.  If we slow down and drop the rigs to the bottom, we immediately hook up to quillback rockfish which are the non-pelagic with a limit of one. 

After no love from the salmon, I tell Ryu to try and fish a sabiki rig hoping the bait fish we see on the screen was herring.  I LOVE herring both for food and bait.  I suspected they were sandlances though due to fish from the previous week being loaded with them.  Ryu was using his ultralight and immediately the rod is bent over in half.  Whoa!  But when he reels in he has 3 black rockfish (limit 4 per day) but they are small maybe 10 inches.  But since they were caught on sabiki rigs, it was illegal to keep them.  after watching him pull up as many as 5 per drop on the sabiki rig and having to release them, I put two small chunks of herring on my salmon gear and drop it down.  Over the next 30 minutes I catch 10 rockfish under 10 inches.  One black rockfish and 9 tiny quillback rockfish.  Since we were fishing in less than 50ft of water, all the released rockfish were safely released with no barotrauma.  It was super strange that the black rockfish which are not known as finicky eaters were ignoring my herring and hammering on the sabiki rigs.  So finally Ryu clips off all but two hooks and continues to hammer the black rockfish for fun.  We end up keeping four small ones for lunch. 

We had forgotten most of our food in the vehicle so by now we are starved.  Of course while Ryu always has a survival kit including fire making items, we had nothing else.  So we build a small fire, throw two of the small rockfish onto our game clips and try and cook them over the fire.  While the fish started to disintegrate while being cooked, enough of it held together and with no seasoning, was some of the best tasting rockfish I ever had due to the "unique" smoky charred flavoring.  Dang!  I think we are going to prep a little more and start filming some survival food prepping clips.  Had it not been for a monster halibuit, this would easily jhave been the highlight of the year in terms of kayak fishing fun.

here are a few pictures:




So after a full stomach, we head back out to troll.  I find the baitfish again and after catching more tiny ling cod, I decide to to use the bigger horse herring.  Still it seemed too big so I cut the herring in half.  I often do this when i start running low on bait.  in the past, I have found that the head when I can rig it to spin is actually the more productive half then the back end which is essential a cut plug.  The thick cloud of bait I found was in 100 feet of water between 30 and 50 ft down.  I am using a 10oz weight and dual 5/0 gamaktasu big river hooks on 40lbs fluoro leader.  I have about 100 feet of line out and was going fairly slowly.  I would guess my line was 30 to 40 feet down. 

I get hammered and I am thinking how did I snag bottom?  A couple of big head shakes and I know it is a fish.  The fish crosses Ryu's line and Ryu masterfully postions himself to get the line untangled.  It was nerve racking as I could feel my line vibrating as he was reeling up.  Braid is tough, but not against other braid or sharp objects like a diver.  Crisis #1 averted.   Fish tows me out to deeper water and slowly but slowly I manage to get it to the top. Notice the shoreline at the beginning of the clip which is about 2 or 3 minutes after IO hook up and the initial surge.  I hooked it more than half way closer in to shore than the beginning of the video.   Of course I hadn't brought my harpoon since I was going to salmon fish.  Ryu had his with him like the pro he is.  Crisis $2 averted.  After I hit the harpoon, my tightening straps on my life jacket gets caught in my reel? WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT, OVER!?!?!?!   I had visions of the reel freezing and me getting pulled over board...probably not very likely. especially with 40lbs leader but the thought crossed my mind.  Crisis #3 averted. 

Finally I get a good look at the fish and notice the hook placement.  Holy cow, outside of the mouth, and it looked barely hooked.  As Fungunnin pointed out in one of my facebook posts, probably uber lucky it was or the fish could have easily sawed off my leader.  As it turns out, I had a super hard time removing the back hook.  It was solidly hooked in a bony/hard part and would have bent the hook before coming free in my opinion.  Crisis #4 averted. 

Normally we don't worry much about the current in Resurrection Bay.  But with a big kite on the end of the harpoon, the incoming tide was quickly drifting us away from the launch.  It was maybe 3/4 of a mile to the beach which is usually not a problem, but towing a big halibut it made for a rough time getting back.  I was thankful for my Hobie Kayak as a paddle kayak would have left us in a bad situation.  If we had to wait for the halibut to settle down so we could attach it to the kayak, we would have drifted another 30 minutes before I felt comfortable doing that.  Crisis #5 averted. 

if you watch the video, I just couldn't figure out what I had on the line.  I thought maybe it was a record ling cod.  They haven't allowed retention in Resurrection bay for  decades and there are some monsters inside the bay now.  But they tend to go into the rocks and and not leave the general area they were hooked. I thought it might be a skate, but I didn't think I was on the bottom.  the lack of head shakes and all the runs before harpooning were super slow descents to the bottom.    The last thing I thought it could be was a halibut because I knew if it was one, it was one of the heaviest ones I have ever felt and that just would be too good after a pretty crappy year and it would just be too good to be true.   

Once we got to shore, we got it taped out conservatively at 63 inches, closer to 63.5 inches which on the weight length charts puts it at 127.5.    I knew it had to be large when I couldn't get my 60lbs boga grips around the lips.  But then the head seemed disproportionately large for the fish when I first looked at it. 

In the past, I didn't recommend Seward as a halibut destination because we usually caught them deep (250ft or more) and you would catch a dozen cod or more before you hooked a halibut.  But the cod and pollock are now gone as evidenced by the 80% reduction in the commercial cod  fishing quota in the area.  maybe that's why there was so much bait.  I know from past experience that though halibut maybe bottom dwellers.  they are not necessarily bottom feeders.  If you fish around bait, you always have the chance to hook up into something good. 

Wow, a novel.  But I am grateful that finally after a long absence, I have a report worthy post to make.  Finally a shout out to the Ryumeister!!!!  I couldn't have done it without him.  I used to take him fishing.  Now he takes care of me!  His filleting skills are now better than mine!!!

A few pics and video!



 
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 10:26:51 PM by kardinal_84 »
Personal Chauffeur for Kokatat & Hobie Fishing Team member, Ryu .

Personal fishing sites of Alaska Kayak Angling adventures of my son and I. I am NOT a guide.
guidesak.blogspot.com
AlaskaKayakFisher.com


kardinal_84

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Personal Chauffeur for Kokatat & Hobie Fishing Team member, Ryu .

Personal fishing sites of Alaska Kayak Angling adventures of my son and I. I am NOT a guide.
guidesak.blogspot.com
AlaskaKayakFisher.com


Wgiv

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Awesome story Rudy. You're not lying about Ryu's fillet skills, those look perfect. Thanks for sharing the details, I've seen a lot of kayakers camping on that spit.


Klondike Kid

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Well Rudy I finally understand what the deal was with your reel after you harpooned the fish. I didn't notice it was your PFD straps when I watched the vid.  Ha. I couldn't imagine what the panic was about. Thanks for the additional details. But at least the harpoon and buoy was in the fish even if it ran and broke your line. Eventually it would have popped back up. Now THAT would have made the video even more unique!  ;D
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RoxnDox

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What a GREAT outing!  You guys were obviously having fun out there together, great to see.  And DAYUMM that's one helluva fish story!!
Junk Jigs "BEST USE OF ACTUAL JUNK" category - "That tape should have been a prized possession and not junk. That will be a collectors item in 30 years!” & “There sure is a lot of junk in there.”


Captain Redbeard

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Awesome story, Rudy, thank you for sharing it! I'm looking forward to watching the video, too. I have loved each of my visits to Seward - such a beautiful place.


Low_Sky

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Congrats Rudy and Ryu.  Great fish, and good teamwork to get it in safely.
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Keen-eye

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Way to go Rudy & Ryu!  Nice fish, video, and story!


easyyakker

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Thanks for the details Rudy. Awesome.


rogerdodger

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MurseStrong

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This is such a fun read & video, thank you for sharing Rudy! You can really learn a lot from watching this battle on “light gear.” What a rodeo hahaha!
If You Know The Answer, Ask Bigger Questions

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Ripndrag

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Wow that’s sweet Rudy I’m happy for you congratulations that was a great post thank you !!!!
Btw Ryu did great filleting nice job 👍👍👍
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SwansonSilver

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Damn Rudy! Haven't been on here in a while. Looks like you and Ryu still got it! Nice teamwork,  my 7 year old is currently "in training". I'm sure he'll be taking care of me someday as well. Hopefully see you out on the spit for some kings this fall!
Fishing relaxes me. It's like yoga except I get to kill something.
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