Non-Fly Boat's first halibut trip

Evan B

Evan B

Bobber Downey Jr.
Staff member
Admin
Had this boat for three years now but just got set up for halibut finally. Didn't want to do it without electric reels so kept putting it off.

Hit up Newport on June 1st and headed 35mi SW to some numbers I fished on a friend's boat last year. Had the place to ourselves and quickly popped three 45" range fish and a 33"er. Headed inshore for lingcod and popped those out in less than an hour.

Limits for 2 and back to the dock by 1 🥳

The main fleet was about 5mi NW of us and didn't seem to do very well. Lots of blanks and frustrated radio chatter. Made me feel super special 😂
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(my half of the bounty)
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That's the reality of halibut in 99%+ of their range.
Still pretty cool to limit on good eatin'-sized flatties in a hot minute. Goodonya!
 
Nice work, that's some good eats. How is the new motor working out? Were you happy with fuel burn numbers? Probably feels a little more comfortable offshore with a motor built this decade on the stern.
 
Tuna Ball said:
Nice work, that's some good eats. How is the new motor working out? Were you happy with fuel burn numbers? Probably feels a little more comfortable offshore with a motor built this decade on the stern.
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Loving it. Despite dropping 25hp (and going from 6cyl to 4) there's no drop in performance whatsoever. Even on flat water here on the Columbia it'll top out at 45mph which is way faster than ill ever go on an ocean trip. I think dropping that 100lb made the biggest difference.

Fuel burn is quite a bit less. Old motor would cruise at like a 10-11 gallon per hour clip, new one does 6-7 gph. That will help me justify the purchase too 😂
 
I'm the first to admit that my disdain towards electric reels makes no rational sense. There is a long list of modern technology that I gleefully take advantage of that makes my fishing life easier. I totally understand why people use them.

Still, I just hate them haha. I have some sort of silly hang up with them just removing the feel of "fishing" from the experience. I have this stubborn thought that if I'm going to go out and target fish in the depths with the intent to fill my freezer that I should somehow "earn" it. I dunno how to explain it....likely cause it's dumb and stubborn, but no matter what I can't shake it.

And above all else, the noise. My god I hate the noise so damned much! Had a guy bring one on a Hali trip a few weeks ago. It was a long day, had to grind out our fish big time. Some boats didn't get em. We did in the end, but I was pretty stressed out. Listening to the noise of his reel all day had me contemplating tying some lead to my belt and becoming a human fish finder.

But again, I fully recognize and admit that it's a me issue and I don't fault anyone for making that choice. Well, except for 350' for crying out loud! ;)
I seriously wish we could target halibut that shallow on a regular basis. God that would be sweet.
 
Nick Clayton said:
I'm the first to admit that my disdain towards electric reels makes no rational sense. There is a long list of modern technology that I gleefully take advantage of that makes my fishing life easier. I totally understand why people use them.

Still, I just hate them haha. I have some sort of silly hang up with them just removing the feel of "fishing" from the experience. I have this stubborn thought that if I'm going to go out and target fish in the depths with the intent to fill my freezer that I should somehow "earn" it. I dunno how to explain it....likely cause it's dumb and stubborn, but no matter what I can't shake it.

And above all else, the noise. My god I hate the noise so damned much! Had a guy bring one on a Hali trip a few weeks ago. It was a long day, had to grind out our fish big time. Some boats didn't get em. We did in the end, but I was pretty stressed out. Listening to the noise of his reel all day had me contemplating tying some lead to my belt and becoming a human fish finder.

But again, I fully recognize and admit that it's a me issue and I don't fault anyone for making that choice. Well, except for 350' for crying out loud! ;)
I seriously wish we could target halibut that shallow on a regular basis. God that would be sweet.
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Trust me I have my fair number of hangups, too. I get it.

And really, just about all the boats in Oregon are using them now. The spot I fished is one of the only real spots to target them at that depth, the rest are 600-900ft. I mostly went there to just get everything dialed-in before hitting the really deep spots. Just so happened I landed on the fish Saturday while the deeper spots struggled. But yeah - most my fishing is likely to happen at much deeper depths now that I got my system dialed in.
 
Nice grocery run.
I’ve never caught a halibut. Just curious if folks check the stomach contents when filleting them and if so, what do you usually find that they are feeding on in 350’ or more depth?
SF
 
Evan B said:
I've done halibut at this depth with manual reels and decided halibut wasn't my thing. Went again with electrics last year and quite enjoyed myself.

I'VE MADE MY CHOICE
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I have been the guy using the only manual reel amongst the electrics in 400' doing LL fishing and 4lb weights. I would get the look, are you done yet? as I crank away....

I have also fished halibut and LL with the electrics. Since these are both grocery run fisheries, the electrics are the way to go for sure.
 
Stonedfish said:
Nice grocery run.
I’ve never caught a halibut. Just curious if folks check the stomach contents when filleting them and if so, what do you usually find that they are feeding on in 350’ or more depth?
SF
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Weirdly enough, we did think to check stomachs on Saturday and they all four were empty. I was kinda surprised at that since they're such aggressive feeders.
 
I haven't purposely checked stomachs on halibut that I can recall, but I do know that I don't routinely see a lot of obvious food remains either. I don't know anything about their metabolism but I wonder if it's pretty fast in general, like albacore, where we tend to only see anything they've eaten super recently.

I have seen them puke up squid and octopus on more than one occasion, and a bunch of shrimp one day recently. I'm honestly not sure what the bulk of their diet consists of in the deep. I've always just gotten the impression that they pretty much just eat anything they come across down there.

I would loooovvvveee to get some good video footage of what it actually looks like down there in some of those deep areas. Would be so cool to see what it looks like down there.
 
Nick Clayton said:
I would loooovvvveee to get some good video footage of what it actually looks like down there in some of those deep areas. Would be so cool to see what it looks like down there.
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I have actually seen a few vids. If I can find them I'll put them up here. Seemed like most the halibut areas were pretty sandy/gravelly with scattered basketball-sized rocks covered in various stationary lifeforms.

I actually caught one such basketball-sized rock on Saturday. Was very grateful for the electric reel :D
 
Evan B said:
Trust me I have my fair number of hangups, too. I get it.

And really, just about all the boats in Oregon are using them now. The spot I fished is one of the only real spots to target them at that depth, the rest are 600-900ft. I mostly went there to just get everything dialed-in before hitting the really deep spots. Just so happened I landed on the fish Saturday while the deeper spots struggled. But yeah - most my fishing is likely to happen at much deeper depths now that I got my system dialed in.
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Yeah they are super common up here as well. Far more common than not, really. We're still one of the only six pack charters not using them.
There are places up here that are relatively shallow where halibut can be caught, but the numbers typically aren't there. From a charter perspective it's just too much of a gamble to hope we can scratch up 6 fish fishing shallow. On the plus side, the fish in shallow are almost always bigger. A lot more fun too, IMO.

Most of our fishing is 500-900' as well. The last four years we've done a lot in that 500' range, which isn't terrible, but last Thursday we ran down into area 1 and fished one of those deeper spots. I damn near forgot what a pain it is to fish 800+' Especially since we brought up probably close to 30 Arrowtooth that day lol. What a friggen hassle
 
Evan B said:
I have actually seen a few vids. If I can find them I'll put them up here. Seemed like most the halibut areas were pretty sandy/gravelly with scattered basketball-sized rocks covered in various stationary lifeforms.

I actually caught one such basketball-sized rock on Saturday. Was very grateful for the electric reel :D
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Ya I'd love to see that. That's about exactly what I have pictured in my head.

A few weeks ago we watched another charter, ran by Mark's brother, dealing with something heavy for quite some time. He kept giving me updates on the radio. We kept floating nearby hoping to see a barn door. At one point he was talking to me on the radio when the electric started marking a god awful noise....he was like "oh shit, I think it's killing our reel". 10 minutes later he got back on and reported it was one of those said rocks lol


My first halibut trip as a deckhand we had this gentleman onboard who was telling me on our way out that he was cursed when it came to halibut fishing. He had done multiple charters out of Ilwaco and never caught one. He told me a story of his last trip....he had caught several skate, a black cod, some random rockfish etc but still no halibut. Near the end of the day his line was acting funny so he brought it all the way up. When he got it to the surface he said he saw his lead come up, followed by a hand giving him the middle finger. He had hooked an old glove, with the hook buried right through the tip of the middle finger so when it came out of the water it was as of the ocean was telling him to fuck off haha
 
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