Halibut Prospecting Report

PM'd Yaknitup and without much arm twisting  he agreed to join me for a attempt at finding some nearshore Halibut. We launched with a slight breeze (which built as the day progressed ) at about 6:30am and paddled 2.3 miles west to a way point given to me by a PB friend.  Dropped our gear and made several north to south drifts of about 1- 1.5 miles each. The paddle up hill after each drift was a work out as we were heading into the wind and current. I thought my dry suit was leaking at one point but turned out it was actually sweat  .. Unfortunately we didn't find the halibut but on the way in we were treated to an audience of about 50+ plus folks watching us land through moderate surf.  The exact spot we launched from in the AM was being used as a movie set for the making of the movie "Crowley"  we even saw Brendon Frazier, answered a few questions about our yaks and got a free ride ( yaks and all) back to our trucks as the trail we used to launch was part of their scene.  I will be giving it another shot in the future, but I think I will need a bottom fishing trip or two first as  it was hard to come back to the beach with a hard day of paddling under my belt and no fish on the stringer.

Way to get out there and give it a go..Persistence will pay off i'm sure.

I'm still waiting for someone to go with me on my Hali mission....

Gotta love the adventure of kayak fishing!  I'd say the 1st attempt aspect was enough to make that a successful day.  Way to make it happen!

-Mark-

Oh yeah, what did you say those coordinates were?   

Great report.   Did ya try for any other sea kittens while you were out there? 

Any pics of the movie set?

too bad you didnt have any NWKA stickers to pass out to the set and especially to Brendan Frazier... what a great chance at publicity..

wait a minute! i thought world class paddlers like pelagic didnt sweat!

looks like you still had a great morning on the water
[WR]

The type of gear used and the bottom type limited us to Halibut or nothing...  I did take a bottom fish rod just in case but nothing presented itself.  Did see several nice bait balls and lot of birds.  Water was much much clearer (gin clear, could see my bait ~30ft under water) than the water I fished a week earlier in PC.  I think Yaknitup may have some shots of the movie stuff, I know he has a neat movie of his trip through the surf.

Way to give it a go!!!

Tips and tricks from a kayak halibut fisherman (me!).  I believe halibut can be coaxed into a reaction bite.  Yes, they'll come in on a dead bait following the scent trail (oh yes, use scent and plenty of it), but I think an active bait really gets them going.  On a kayak you don't have as much action (or as violent of an action, think PB pitching and heaving in the waves/swell).  So I like to do an exaggerated jigging motion.  Big sweaping strokes.  Short series of tugs.  Let it sit, then give a jig.  Mix it up.  But keep the bait moving and get the halibut to think its meal is trying to flee.

-Allen

Is that a Lamiglas Bluewater pro you're using?  I just discovered mine has splintered.  About the upper third there's about a half inch peeling off between guides (too small to show a pic).  No idea how it could happen.

Anyone else ever see small pieces splintering off a rod?

I hate living in the desert

Yeah, we got a good workout in that's for sure.
I love halibut fishing, even if I don't catch anything. It was obviously a bit of a different ball game down in San Diego, but I love drifting in a kayak and just rocking in the waves... it's pretty much therapeutic for me. 
The wind did pick up just a little too much I would say. It was nice to have a steady drift to cover ground with, but resetting the drift was a chore and a half! I too thought I had a leak in my dry top!
Thankfully, we left the audience with nothing to laugh at coming back in. I almost lost it right at the end. You'll notice right at the end of my clip that the camera shook pretty good, that was from the wave throwing me onto the sand! Man, that would've been one painful huli!







We were hoping the director would come up to us and ask if we wanted to be kayak fishing advisers for his new fishing documentary on location in Fiji!

Awesome video!  I just watched it three times and I was there.  Going through the surf as to be almost as much fun as catching fish. 

Sweet.  Nice job guys.  If you arn't in the movies yet, you should be after that landing.  Now that's how you crash a movie set!  Cool.