Some times the big ones don't get away

  We had a great day of halibut fishing today. After limiting on our king salmon we anchored over deep water for halibut.  I had to apologize for the depth of the water... it was over 500 feet deep.

 We had just dropped the four lines to the bottom when the rockfish started pecking at the bait. Twitch, twitch, the rod tips wiggled. We managed three nice tiger rock fish before the first rod signaled halibut.
  Big Halibut! "Wait... wait..." the rod finally bowed to the ocean nearly dipping its tip into the salt water. "Get him now! Reel, Reel, reel!" I shouted, as the client burned the reel handle into the big fish.
  I could see he was reeling as fast as he could but the line was burning OFF the reel and not onto it. I tightened the drag as the big fish continued taking line.
  "Wait him out. It's all you can do," I coached, "get back on him as soon as he stops running."
  At last the big fish slowed and stopped.
  "Now get back to reeling and see if we can turn his head off the bottom," I said.
  The battle had just begun. Each time the line seemed to be coming on the reel the big fish would make another charge to the bottom.
It took some time but eventually the big runs became less and less.
  "You've got him coming up now, just keep his head pointed up. When you stop to rest he will turn over and head back to the bottom."
 We finally had the big fish to the side of the boat and ready to bring on board. As gently as I could I slid him onto the deck.
 The halibut was tired enough that it never wiggled on the deck. We laid it out on my measurements. It was a whopping 67 inches long.
One inch short of being a keeper under our halibut laws of this season.
  We quickly took pictures and slid his huge body back into the sea. With a monster woosh of his tail he disappeared into the inky depths.
 That was our big one for the day. He booked out at 155.6 pounds. We also had a 135 pounder, a 125 pounder, a 77 pounder and a 50 pounder.
All released according to the law.
We did manage to fill our limits of four halibut under 45 inches for the legal limit.
What a great day of fishing.

  Sometimes the big ones don't get away, but rather, are turned loose to fight another day.