Halibut harpoon technique

You know ... I have this thought that something like a hay hook with a slip tip would be way more effective than a straight shaft harpoon.  That way I can swing down like a hammer, which would also get a better angle of entry.

-Allen

You know ... I have this thought that something like a hay hook with a slip tip would be way more effective than a straight shaft harpoon.  That way I can swing down like a hammer, which would also get a better angle of entry.

-Allen

Just don't miss the fish and hit the boat, I can see that going south real fast.

What do you harpooners try to hit?  The gill plates and head, or meat behind the gill plates?

Still in testing for me.  I agree with Allen that a stomach hit fish seems to hold no problems and it does slow them down.  I've hit them in the gill plates and that worked ok.  Wire cut through the top gill plate, but stuck in the bottom.  The thrashing around also made the wire cut the gills which made for a perfectly bled fish.

Any fish I HAVE to catch, I am hitting it in the shoulders.  I'm not going to worry about a pound of meat when i am trying to land a trophy fish weighing 100 pounds or more. 

The hay hook thing has merit.  I thought long and hard about it.  I was going to bend the harpoon tip 90deg. But unless you weight the end of the hay hook, I'd think the straight push method has more force than swinging something light that could contact the water and stop prematurely.  Maybe I am not visioning it right. 

Well given the responses and valid arguments on both sides, this is definitely an interesting topic.  I just don't think anyone has caught enough halibut yet to definitively say one method is better than the other.   

I'm going with the harpoon until I see more videos of people using shark hooks.    If you go to the 10:50 mark, you see Allen using a shark hook.  Sorry about the crappy lens.  But you can see how he has to reach for the fish.  I don't like that feeling.  For me better to sit up straight and hit the fish.  SHould be cued up on a PC or MAc.  http://youtu.be/Pj1tN8UfLSk?t=10m51s

If you go backwards from there to about the 7min 35 second mark, its the start of the Kodiak trip Highlights.  You will see me harpoon two fish, Mark and Chris one each.  And then of course Allen.  I just gotta believe the harpoon is the more solid method...IF YOU CAN KEEP THE TIP ON!

Last year I made a short harpoon out of a spare shaft with a break away tip from one of my blue water spear guns.   I cut the shaft down to about 36" and buried and pinned about 10" of it into an oak garden tool handle. These shafts have a small rubber o-ring that keeps the breakaway tip securely engaged on the shaft until it's done its job...worked flawlessly for me last year. I hit my fish behind the eyeballs and it "stoned" that sucker...never moved again.

Note the small rubber bands I use as cable keepers.

The hay hook thing has merit.  I thought long and hard about it.  I was going to bend the harpoon tip 90deg. But unless you weight the end of the hay hook, I'd think the straight push method has more force than swinging something light that could contact the water and stop prematurely.  Maybe I am not visioning it right. 

A "slap gaff" is essentially the same design withou a slip tip.  No problems with penetration.  I've even been on a charter out of Valdez that used hay hooks.  If you think a bent harpoon shaft won't work, the I'd consider adding a little weight towards the bend for more momenturm.

-Allen

My concern with a bent slap hook is the bent end is going to need to be pretty long to ensure the point comes completely out the other side and can toggle over. A large halibut can be 8-12" thick. I'm thinking the bent shaft needs to be at least 16" long to make sure you get the tip all the way through.

My concern with a bent slap hook is the bent end is going to need to be pretty long to ensure the point comes completely out the other side and can toggle over. A large halibut can be 8-12" thick. I'm thinking the bent shaft needs to be at least 16" long to make sure you get the tip only half way through.

Yeah, and at that length you run the risk of sideways torque forcing the tip in a off direction, at least with a straight handle.  With a T handle (or a triangle) of a more traditional hay hook, the rotational torque is somewhat alleviated.  Starting to stray from the KISS principle here ...

-Allen

I'm no 'spert on the matter at hand, but I've stuck a few halibut from my yak.  IMHO anything that requires reaching or motions that aren't aimed the shortest distance between you and the fish are not the best in the west.  Straight jabbing motions, as with a harpoon, allow the most direct and efficient application of force to the fish and you don't have to shift your center of gravity of the kayak flailing your arms around trying to reach out and stab the fish from the side. 

It is true, people use shark hooks and hay hooks and who knows what else.  But many of those people have a hard boat rail to lean up against as well.  If you are trying to use a shark hook, hay hook, or slap gaff you'll have to swing a bit harder to get the same penetration as you do with a straight striking motion of the harpoon.

If you watch my short clip you can see how easy it is to poke the harpoon through the fish with the harpoon.  I would've had to swing a lot harder with anything coming from the side or towards me.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fM2ajmUvXIY?rel=0

The biggest trick I have learned from personal experience and trips with Salty old charter captains is to keep the fish's head under the surface of the water with a little tension on the line.  As soon as you pick them out of the water they start wiggling, jiggling, flappin, and flopping around.
 

There is no hard swinging with a shark hook.  It's just an upward tug.

There is no hard swinging with a shark hook.  It's just an upward tug.

True...forgot about that part.

The most important thing to remember is go with what you're comfortable with and confident in.  If you don't think it won't work....it won't work

+1
For the big ones I'd rather push it away with a detachable harpoon tip in it than pull it to me with a big hook or handle in it. For less than 15 pounds I just gaf them and whack them. Two harpoons in that big one. Overkill? maybe but I brought it to the beach.

I'm no 'spert on the matter at hand, but I've stuck a few halibut from my yak.  IMHO anything that requires reaching or motions that aren't aimed the shortest distance between you and the fish are not the best in the west.  Straight jabbing motions, as with a harpoon, allow the most direct and efficient application of force to the fish and you don't have to shift your center of gravity of the kayak flailing your arms around trying to reach out and stab the fish from the side. 

It is true, people use shark hooks and hay hooks and who knows what else.  But many of those people have a hard boat rail to lean up against as well.  If you are trying to use a shark hook, hay hook, or slap gaff you'll have to swing a bit harder to get the same penetration as you do with a straight striking motion of the harpoon.

If you watch my short clip you can see how easy it is to poke the harpoon through the fish with the harpoon.  I would've had to swing a lot harder with anything coming from the side or towards me.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fM2ajmUvXIY?rel=0

The biggest trick I have learned from personal experience and trips with Salty old charter captains is to keep the fish's head under the surface of the water with a little tension on the line.  As soon as you pick them out of the water they start wiggling, jiggling, flappin, and flopping around.

When doing some Googling about harpoons, I came across some information about "Kage Gaffs," which are smooth-tipped fish spears which some power boat and kayak fishermen use to subdue fish and/or pitchfork them into their boat.  These spears don't have any barb, but some of them are made out of rough-sided rod such as rebar or threaded rod which probably helps hold fish on the spear.  Has anybody used this kind of spear, and what's the technique for using this kind of spear?  Seems like you'd lose a lot of fish off a barbless spear.  There's a reason why speargun spears always have some kind of barb, flopper, or slip tip.  A harpoon with a slip tip, rope, and float seems like a much more effective way to get control over a halibut or other big fish.

When doing some Googling about harpoons, I came across some information about "Kage Gaffs," which are smooth-tipped fish spears which some power boat and kayak fishermen used to subdue fish and/or pitchfork them into their boat.  These spears don't have any barb, but some of them are made out of rough-sided rod such as rebar or threaded rod which probably helps hold fish on the spear.  Has anybody used this kind of spear, and what's the technique for using this kind of spear?  Seems like you'd lose a lot of fish off a barbless spear.  There's a reason why speargun spears always have some kind of barb, flopper, or slip tip.  A harpoon with a slip tip, rope, and float seems like a much more effective way to get control over a halibut or other big fish.

Same technique as harpoons.  Head shots!

And for whatever reason, pelagics seem to have softer skulls and more or less calm down immediately upon brain spike.

-Allen

I like do-it yourself projects, and was thinking of making a halibut harpoon. However, I was discouraged by the expense of spearfishing slip tips, which cost $70-$120 without the shaft.  Then I heard about the Danielson halibut harpoon, which was available from Amazon for $35 with free shipping.  It was difficult to see the details and dimensions of the harpoon in the pictures on the internet, but the price was right, so I ordered one.

When the harpoon arrived and I pulled it out of its box, I though “Holy cow, this isn’t a halibut harpoon, it’s a whale harpoon!  Or an elephant harpoon!”  Here are pictures of the head and shaft of the harpoon:





The slip tip is 7.75” (19.5 cm) long and .5” (12 mm) in diameter. It was manufactured pretty dull.  It fits on a metal shaft which is 3/8” in diameter.  A rubber “O” ring on the tip of the shaft does a good job of holding the slip tip on the shaft.  There is 10.75” (27.5 cm) of metal shaft behind the slip tip.  The wooden shaft is 1 1/8” (27mm) in diameter and 4.5’ long.  My harpoon is 6’ long overall, but Danielson also makes a 5’ harpoon.  If you drop the harpoon in the water it’ll sink, whether or not the tip is on the shaft.

The good news is that with relatively little work you could have an inexpensive and adequate halibut harpoon.  You’d need to sharpen the tip, tie on a rope and a buoy, saw about a foot off the shaft, and add some kind of flotation to the shaft so the harpoon won’t sink if you drop it.  The rubber O-ring does a good job of gently retaining the slip tip, so you won’t need to worry about the slip tip falling off the shaft at an inconvenient moment.  And the shaft is sufficiently thick that a fish is unlikely to bend it before you can pull it back out.

The bad news is as follows:

1.   The slip-tip is half an inch thick, which means that it’ll take a lot of force to jam the tip through a fish.  The slip tip is retained by a loop of cable connected with two ferules.  This is a fairly high-drag arrangement which adds to the force which will be required to stuff the tip through a fish.  Spearfishing slip tips have retention cables or spectra retention lines which are attached to the slip tip in much sleeker and lower-resistance ways.

2.   The slip tip is 7.75” long.  This is way longer than spearfishing slip tips, which are typically around 4.5” long.  In order to ensure that the slip tip will toggle sideways, you need to stick it all of the way through the fish.  This means that you should try to thrust the shaft of the harpoon into the fish all of the way to the wooden shaft. 

3.   The slip tip doesn’t have a tab on its butt end to help slide the tip off the shaft as you withdraw the shaft from the fish, and to encourage the slip tip to tip over in the correct direction to toggle at right angles to the spear hole.  Take a look at pictures of slip tips on the internet to see what I’m talking about.  If you have access to welding or silver soldering equipment, it would be easy to make a stainless steel tab and weld it to the butt end of the slip tip.

4.   The harpoon will sink like a rock unless you add flotation to it.

The bottom line is that this harpoon is probably better suited to stabbing really big halibut from a motor boat than it is to poking 40-100 pound halibut from a kayak, but it provides an inexpensive and easy way to develop an adequate harpoon set-up for use in a kayak.

However, the harpoon has enough shortcomings that I’m considering making an entire harpoon from scratch, including the slip tip.  If I do it, I’ll post the details.

I like DIY projects too but I found that getting into a harpoon project that will last a lifetime or two could be costly & time consuming for me (limited on tools & know how). Choosing my battle I decided to have one custom made by someone that can provide a quality product for a reasonable price. I found "Morita Custom Gaffs" in California & have been in contact with the guy. I feel he has a quality product made from Calcutta Bamboo, & an honest work ethic. It's worth checking out & I'll let you know how my custom poon turns out. You can find Morita Custom Gaffs on FB.
HH