July 26th Halibut & Lingcod Combo- The Unexpected

Steve and his employees from Jacobson's Greenhouse Wasilla rented the boat for an annual employee appreciation trip.  Our game plan was to sit for some barn door halibut and move onto ling cod in the afternoon.  the fishing was slow with less than two feet of water moving on the outgoing tide.  By 2pm we had only landed two halibut in the 10lb-15lb range.  We did however hook into a giant salmon shark.  The shark was hooked on a small king salmon lure fixed with a tiny treble hook; definitely not the rod I would of chose to successfully land a 500lb salmon shark on.  The fight was spectacular, the shark ran to the boat twice and the angler somehow was able to keep up with the fish maintaining line tension as the shark darted towards the boat at 15mph.  After 10 minutes the fish turned his head and took us all the way down to the backing.  At that point we had no choice but to start thumbing the spool to attempt to slow it down and turn his head.  Right before running out of line the shark took a tail wrap and cut the line with its skin.  A big disappointment but I figured we only had about a 10% chance of landing the fish on the gear we had hooked it on anyway

Shortly after we moved to our ling cod spot to drift over some pinnacles.  Aarons jig was the first jig to hit the bottom immediately hooked up with a 130lb halibut that ran clear to the other side of the boat stripping line and shaking its head violently in its last desperate attempt to spit the hook.  We managed to catch 42 of our 44 halibut while drifting for ling cod; a very unusual yet fun way to catch halibut.  It was fast action fishing, we were averaging a fish every minute.  Miles and I could hardly keep up.  We still needed more ling cod and all we were catching was halibut, so we moved 5 miles to another spot which has produced in the past.  As the clock approached 6pm and I announce that this would be our last drift, everyone put there game faces on and jigged there hearts out.  I saw Ruth's line double over with some giant head shakes and instantly I knew she had hooked another monster halibut.  It took about 10 minutes to get the fish up to the surface, so we loaded the gun and placed a slug right between the eyes.  By 6:20pm the boat had 44 halibut 18 ling cod, 9 yellow eye and 15 black bass.  Killer fishing and weather made this trip one of the best I've had in terms of action and excitement. 

Thanks Steve and your crew for coming back out with us.  I can't wait till next years trip.  FISH ON!!!