Alaska Blues

  A great morning of salmon fishing had ended. I grabbed the radio mic and called one of my guide buddies.
  "How were the blue sharks here on the Cape yesterday?" I asked.
  "There were some that gave us trouble," came his voice over the radio.
  "Thanks. That gives me the info I need for halibut fishing," I replied.
  I motored the boat out of the salmon troll area and drifted while cleaning the twenty four silver salmon. I wanted all the fresh blood completely gone before I anchored for halibut.
  When the blue sharks move into our area they can completely shut down your halibut fishing by biting off every bait you try to send to the bottom for halibut. Once they gather below the boat you are just feeding sharks instead of getting the halibut bait to the bottom.
  I baited the four halibut lines and sent them to the bottom. The eager fishermen and one fisherwoman were anxious to catch some good halibut and other bottom fish.
  "I feel a bite!" shouted one of the clients. He did indeed "feel" the bite, as he is blind.
  Bud came up for a fishing trip with his son, daughter, and son-in-law. A remarkable man who is not letting his blindness stand in his way of what he has loved his entire life.
  I watched his halibut rod bend over and coached, "Reel, reel, reel. Get him Bud!"
  Bud cranked the reel handle as hard as he could to get the circle hook set in the fish.
  "Wow, you've got a good one, Bud," I encouraged.
  The rod bent way over as the big fish pulled.
  Snap! the line parted.
  "Oh oh, I know what that was," I said, "A silly blue shark."
  Sure enough, upon inspecting his broken line, we could see where the shark's rough hide had sanded the line in half.
  I rebated his line and sent him back down. The bait did not reach the bottom before the shark had him again. Snap! Another broken line.
  "O.K., now we've got our work cut out for us," I told the clients. We are going to have to really bomb the baits quickly to the bottom to miss the sharks. I added another pound to the weights in order to get them down faster.
  It was quite some time later when Bud's son, Cory, had a big fish bite.
  "Crank, crank, get him!" I coached as he powered the reel into the big fish.
  The rod was bending but not throbbing like a halibut, and suddenly the line started taking off away from the boat.
  Halibut always fight to get back to the bottom, not running away from the boat.
  "You've got a shark on,Cory!" I shouted to him. I raced to his rod and grabbed it out of the rail handing it to him.
  "You're going to have to fight it by hand in order to chase this fish around the boat!"
  The shark did its best to tangle in everything. We were racing around the boat grabbing halibut lines out of the way.
  "Go over that line! Under this one! Look out he is heading around the motors!"
  There were times that big shark pulled so hard it had Cory plastered to the side of the boat, hanging on for dear life!
  What an exciting fight with a huge fish.
  I kept waiting for the line to snap as the shark bit the leader in two, but we just kept on gaining on it.
  "I see it!" I shouted, as a huge blue shape appeared out of the deep water.
  "Let me have your line. You just stay by me and be ready in case he makes another run. I'll have to let go of the line if he does," I told Cory.
  I eased the big shark up close and at last got a big shark hook into its mouth.
  "Hang tough!" I shouted as the shark went crazy rolling over and over. I held him to the side of the boat until he was done thrashing.
  "Fish coming on board!" I shouted, as I heaved the big shark onto the deck.
  We all stood there panting and looking at the massive shark.
  We hi-fived and whooped it up for a while then took some great pictures.
  Cory had won the battle against a great fish.
  What an exciting day in Alaska.

MONSTER OF THE DEEP

Salmon fishing was over. The fish hold contained four very nice king salmon.

I had the clients baited for halibut on one of my good chicken halibut areas. Chicken halibut are the nice eating size ranging from 20 to 40 pounds.
  “Fish on!” shouted one of the guys, while reeling like crazy on the bending rod.
   “Wait, wait, stop!” I shouted back, “you are snagged on the bottom.”
Sure enough,  the poor guy was just reeling on a big rock and would have worn himself out trying to land the bottom of the ocean.
 We all had a good chuckle at his expense as I fed line to the snagged bait and sinker.
I tried my best to jerk the snagged line free, but it would not give an inch.
  “We’ll give it slack and see if the ocean current will work it free… or maybe a fish will be kind enough to free it for us. Take a break and eat lunch while you wait,” I told the client.
We waited and watched. Small halibut were biting the other lines but seemed to ignore the snagged bait.
We were nearing an hour wait time on the snagged line and I was just about ready to cleat the line to the boat and break it off.
 I glanced at the snagged line and saw the pole pounding away like a halibut was on the hook.
  “Now you have a fish on, reel, reel reel!” I shouted as one of the guys raced for the throbbing rod.
Right away we could tell this was a big fish. It over powered the drag as I tightened it more and more. It was like we couldn’t pry the fish off the bottom.
 Big Ron was on the reel, a very bit guy, standing close to 6’5” tall and broad in the shoulders. If anyone could win the battle with some monster of the deep, it should be Ron.
 I had the shark hook lashed to the boat, all the halibut hooks on standby, the gaff ready, and the guys prepped should I need help bringing the fish over the rail. I was still not sure how big the fish was as it was more of a huge hanging weight than a fighting fish. We could tell it was huge, but without the fish running to the bottom again and again it was hard to really know how big.

“Ok, you’re getting close to seeing color,” I comment as big Ron kept on cranking the reel handle. I could tell he was about tuckered out.
 “Color!” I shouted, “stop reeling. Let me get the line. Wow this is a huge fish!” I shouted.
 I eased the big fish to the surface and got the shark hook into it and the battle began. The docile fish exploded in fury!
I need to bring the fish on board alive to measure it as there is a limit on the size of big fish we can keep. To keep a large halibut they need to measure over 68 inches. That weigh’s out at about 160 pounds.
The more I looked at this monster hanging on the line the more sure I was that it was certainly a keeper.
I grabbed the gaff and rapped it on the head to stun it to bring it on board
  “Everyone help!” I ordered.
Hands came from all around me to grab the shark hook line and the halibut hooks.
   “One, two, three… heave!” I begged. The big fish was not coming over the rail at all.
A huge hand came over my shoulder and big Ron grabbed the line. The massive halibut landed on the deck with a boom.
We all stood stunned. What a fish! It was huge.
 I grabbed a tape and we stretched a good honest measurement on the fish. 93 inches!
I raced in for the tide book to get a live weight on the big fish. As close as we could figure on the book weight, the monster weighted about 450 pounds.
A true monster of the deep.