Halibut Trap
 

I have been getting an education in rake 101. I have used the trap but they seem to avoid it. Question is where do you like to put the trap for better success? Also, do ya perfer SD Bay or MB for Hali? I know SD Bay in the back has a lot by the bridge but I am not eating them but toward the mouth of the bay, fair game. Appreciate any thoughts on this one as I am heading out tomorrow to drag some dines around. Thanks Todd

isnt it gonna be too windy tomorrow?

Heading to the bay. Gotta go when you can go.

Gonna hit up sd bay 0630 in search of the flat kind
I'll be in a olive revolution
Shelter Island

I'm curious.....why wouldn't you eat a fish that was caught near a bridge but you would eat a fish that was caught 100yards away in the same water?

must be the troll poop

Trap hook for me always goes top or bottom of the tail area. San Diego Bay is better for Halis, I believe, and anywhere from The two North Island air base hangers toward the mouth of the bay is holding some monster Halis.

My experience is, there is no need for a trap hook, unless you want to catch small halibut. Big 'butts inhale the bait. Raked baits are usually small males. Just keep pounding the area to find the bigger females. Good Luck and tight lines

Geno

Thanks for the info guys.

~As to why I avoid eating fish way back in the bay...A lot more industry back there with NASCO and a potential for pollution. There are a lof of spills back in that area. An occasional butt would be fine but I would avoid eating a lot of fish from back in the bay. The mouth of the bay has less industry and more water movement. Just my opinion...
:cheers1:

He's probably referring to the Coronado Bridge. From there to the bay entrance area is like 2 miles. There are a lot of pollutants concentrated in the back bay area (Shipyards, manufacturing, runoff). Various reasons for this but the big one is because it is tucked away so far, it has very poor water exchange with new, fresh saltwater.

sorry to hijack but does anyone use the tag end of a palomar to tie the stinger to, thats what ive been doing and i just wanted to make sure the tag isnt allot weaker. but i usually put it by the anal fin

Why can't we redirect mlpa gunners to those factories which is the real danger not only to fishery but our own health?

I haven't ever had trouble with the trap hooks. The size of baits I prefer trap hooks work very well, but that's if I'm using live bait. Plastics I don't use trap hooks at all.

Because, unfortunately, the mlpas have nothing to do with common sense.

fish move. that hali by the bridge could have been out at sea a week earlier. and the one you catch by the mouth could have spent 2 months chillin in the back bay.

eat what you want. i wouldnt worry about where it came from.

DAMMIT!!!!

You beat me to it!

its only common sense... ;)

I used trap hooks for a while but after landing only more shorts halibut and gut hooking some sand bass I stopped using them. I also feel that the bait, any bait, will swim better and live longer with out that second hook in the tail. Now I use a light wire circle matched to size the bait. When I worked for the Hubbs institute we taggedsome halibut with acustic tags and released them in to Mission Bay. We had several automated listening probes on the bottom to tell us where the halis went in the bay. We had one fish that started in the back bay near Vacation Village. It barely moved for a few days and then on one out going night tide it completely left the bay and out the mouth. They do move. Mike

It's difficult to trap hook a live fin bait. The trap hook usually comes out of the bait or your bait dies. Here's some tips. Use a treble hook rather than a single and nose hook your bait as you normally would. Mustad 3X strong in sizes 4 and 2 work for most sardines. I like Mustads because they have good barbs! Fish with your reel in gear, my rod holder out fishes me hands down. Someone mentioned using a Palomar knot and putting the trap hook on the tag end, that rig is deadly with live squid but doesn't work well with live fin bait.

On another note I was listening to Lets Talk Hookup with gues Ron Baker. He had some great hali tips. He too is adamat against the trap as all you get are shorts and you may kill them. So I hit up San Diego Bay today, no trap and got some live bait. Got raked 8 times and then I hooked up. Seemed to have some pull so I tried to wear it out. On the way up snap goes the leader....Damm. I pull the rig up 8' or so and see a clean cut. The all of a sudden a freaking huge threasher shark comes up to the yak, he hits the boat and rolls over tail come out of the water and hits my arm. He goes under the yak and runs into the fins of the hobie drive. This gal was pissed. I thought about trying to gaff her but quickily realized I was in over my head and watched her swim away. Who knew threashers in SD Bay? No keepers but what a beautiful day!

I fished the bay yesterday along with a number of fellows in our tubes and pontoons.
Things could have become quite exciting had we spotted a shark with all of our legs dangling in the water!!!

This is true when you hook the bait in the belly, that's why I always hook it on the top right behind the dorsal fin. As far as bait life goes I don't leave my bait on long enough to see it die, I change my bait when I no longer see the tip of my rod moving/shaking. However, when it comes to anchovies and squid your response is true, their life span is extremely short but again.....change it often and you'll be OK.



I tried this a few times and got the same results, the problem is that if the fish doesn't swallow the entire bait you end up with the same results: raked bait. If I'm going to use a single hook I would go with a single circle hook instead.

About everything you said is backward, fin bait has a very short life span when trap hooked and a live squid does very well. When you hook a big halibut you will know what I'm talking about, they dont mess around.

There is no one right way, but there many ways to catch halibut. Traps work, and there are times that you can only catch butts with a trap, just like there are also times you can only catch them on a single hook.

The idea that only small fish rake baits and drop them is totally absurd. I've seen eight inch mackerel with bite marks from thirty pound plus halibut where they grabbed it for an instant the dropped it making a huge V with what looked like icepick holes in the bait. If you fish them enough you can tell just by the teeth marks how big they are.

Here's a quote from an old kayak report of mine from back in 2006:

That's a classic trap hook scenario. That fish was pushing thirty and out of twenty or more raked baits it was the only halibut I caught. What I did not say is I think that fish hit three times before I hooked her because I got raked hard twice in exactly the same spot before she hung. I just kept working it till I stuck her.

Afterwords I told a few friends about that bite and there were only three fish caught in the next few days there that I heard about but they were all over 19 pounds. Everyone said the same thing: tons of raked baits. So don't try to tell me big fish don't rake and drop baits it's utter BS.

It's all simple mechanics. Halibut are ambush feeders, they come up off the bottom and usually grab the bait sideways with the baits head outside their mouth, then lie back down on the sand, turn the bait and swallow it head first. Every once in a while a big fish with just engulf the bait whole but that is not the norm. When your letting them run your really waiting for them to lie back down on the sand. If they hold on to it long enough to turn the bait you can get them with a single hook, but if the do not hold on long enough or don't turn the bait you can not hook them with a nose hooked bait.

Often halibut are in a kind of finicky mood where they grab the bait and almost instantly spit it back out, it's almost impossible to get those fish with a single hook.

Know what an assist hook is? Like one of these: http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/512...igging7xf8.jpg

OK I tie my trap hooks like assist hooks but with trebles and doubled twenty pound power pro green spectra. The hooks I use are small super sharp stainless trebles. I hook the bait behind the anal fin underneath it, and they last more then long enough to get bit that way. Twenty pound spectra is about as thin as fine thread, it offers almost no resistance to the swimming bait, and can hardly be seen against the bait by the halibut I'm targeting. It can't get cut by thier teeth and it's almost impossible for them to break with the drag I use.

When I fish traps 90% of the time I keep the reel in gear with a light drag. I'm not waiting for them to turn and swallow the bait, I'm trying to hook them right when they first grab it sideways, before they even have a chance to spit it. All I need is one of those thread like double strands of spectra to catch on one of their teeth. What happens is if they catch a strand of spectra and then pull away, they then pull that treble right into the side of their mouth and they are hooked even if it was never in their mouth.

I'm not saying it's an ideal hookeset, and it's not as strong as hooking them with a big single inside the mouth. In order for it to work you have to run a light drag, and be easy on the fish but it definitely works. Their teeth can not cut spectra so you don't have bite offs, and the pulled hook ratio is not bad if you fish light enough gear. I use maybe six to eight feet of 15lbs fluorocarbon with twenty pound spectra mainline, and I fish it with a very light drag. With the spectra's lack of stretch and the small sharp trebles you hook a lot of fish without having to wait for them to swallow the bait.

I've caught a lot of halibut, I've also got some good friends that fish halibut almost exclusively: guys like Robert (Locals Only) that have had IGFA records for halibut. I would say that half of my halibut over ten pounds have been caught with trap rigged baits, and I'd also say from my experience fishing with guys that are in general much better halibut fisherman then I am, that there are days when you simply can't catch them without running trap hooks.


Just saying...


It's not either or... I'd say a smart angler has many tools in the toolbox. :D

TRIG

Trap Rig in Gear.

This is all sound advice. If the fish never turns the bait, or get's it's head in it's mouth doesn't matter what kind of hook you have in it's nose.

You hook it in the abdominal or anal cavity your just killing your bait. You can hook it in the meat on top or behind the anal cavity and then the bait lasts.

Circles work but you need to fish light line and completely let them swallow the bait. I have a friend who only fishes circles for butts but only when there is no drift at all the idea being any fish you get will swallow the hook before you even see it's on.

One thing I'll add is squid works great with a trap, and lives fine till something trashes it. The deal is everything from a blacksmith on up tries to eat it so it's usually worried to death by junk fish. I like to rig squid so it stays off the bottom. If you rig squid on a long leader like a sardine they litterally will lie down and try to camo themselves agaist the sand.

Jim

Right ON!

:D......yeah, someday I hope to find out what it feels like. For now I'll just keep catching the little ones like the ones posted down below.

All joking aside......I'm going to give the single hook and trap hook rigs a try this coming weekend. I'll fish one rod with a single circle hook and the other with a circle hook and a trap hook, can't wait to see what the results are

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http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1325672772


http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1323718637


http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1327299458

The truth is that there is not one best way to rig for Halibut, there are only circumstantially best ways. All you need to do to prove this is check out a half dozen articles, from respected Halibut fishermen, to see how different their approaches can be. What is "best" for you will be based on what works for you and the way you prefer to fish for them.

Is there such a thing as "respected halibut fishermen"?
:D


http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...ys/halibut.gif:notworthy:

This guy is pretty good....as you pointed out in this thread. One of my all time favorite post on this form. I could not stop laughing out loud while ready that.

http://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/s...khorse+halibut

You are right, maybe I should have said infamous or reputed?

Great thread!

Lots of good advice here.

Jim Day, I can't tell you how many threads you have chimed in on that I have taken away good knowledge. Rigging, technique, fabricating, magging reels...you pick it. I greatly appreciate your contributions.

Just an anecdote...2 weeks ago my buddy was bringing in a trap rig, up from the bottom, and it got nailed by a strong yellow tail.
He gave it a good fight, but the fish finally broke off, after nearly spooling the smaller halibut setup three different times (we could see the metal on the spool).

Sigh, just when you decide to do a light rig to tease the butts, they get an uninvited guest.
Load up the setup for that random chance, and the butts may never take a look at the heavier rigging.

Ain't that fishin'?

Tight lines,

Willy

Thanks man I really appreciate that. I just try to share what I can.

Got a PM about how to rig traps with spectra, It's super simple, just a loop, I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.

Jim

Great thread. Thanks Jim, George and everyone else for sharing your expertise.:notworthy:

I guess there's more to fishing than dumb luck. :confused: