So much for dreams of more halibut this year

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/mrp/finfish/halibut/estimates/halcatch2009.asp

Wow.  9000 lbs over in the all depth.  

Dang.. 41,534 lbs out of Newport alone between Aug 7-9th.

Someone posted on Ifish one day that there were something like 600-700 boats through Newport in one day.  Lines were backed up all over the place. 

I was there that weekend on the 6th.  We showed up at Newport at 4:30 in the morning and the boats were lined up to the bridge/highway.  I've been salmon/hali fishing out of newport for 10years and I've never seen it like that.  It took us 2 and half hours waiting in line to launch and almost 2 hours to trailer at 7pm that evening.  North end of the rockpile looked like a parking lot there was a boat every 100 feet or less.  It was a joke.

I use to live in Toledo, you should look at launching by the old airport.  We left at 5 and had no waiting.  It's doesnt take to much extra time to just drive the boat into Newport.  But there wasn't much room out there anyways.

Jason

Only problem is if you're planning for chicken ranch that's an extra 12-15 miles worth of gas.  We thought about it but ya wasn't worth it.