My first attempt of the year for halibut from the surf payed off quite nicely. I started at low tide to be able to easily walk past the slough and hopefully dodge some of the loose floating garbage that is usually present at the higher tides. I was using a 3 inch 'Chovy colored Big Hammer on a 3/16 oz. Black Assalt Darter Head.
Big Hammer - 'Chovy
The first 20 minutes produced 8 nice sized perch. Six of them were caught back to back. I thought, “well if the halibut aren’t awake I guess I’m going to have fun with the perch.” Started walking further East to check out a few more spots and caught a couple more perch. After about an hour I went back to my first spot and immediately caught two more nice perch (the largest being about 1.5 pounds). Then after a few more casts I get another little perch tap a couple yards from my feet (I was in water about 2 feet deep). I set the hook and new right away it was not a perch. I felt the typical halibut head shakes and knew I was into something. I briefly caught a glimpse of the tail as it took off for the first run. At that point I knew it was very legal. It made a nice initial run and then I “babied” it back to the beach. A few more short runs, strong head shakes and before I knew it my hand was under it’s gill and I was holding up my largest halibut to date. It was 34 inches long and weighed 16 lbs. 5 oz.
The successful retrieves were a medium-slow retrieve with occasional strong twitches of the rod.
Equipment:
G. Loomis HS930GL3
Shimano Stradic 4000
6 lb. Maxima
3 inch Chovy colored Big Hammer
3/16 oz. Assalt Darter Lead Head
Pro-Cure Calico Cocktail
My son Pierce inspecting the halibut
You can’t catch tomorrow what you kill today, please practice catch and release.
