How to land a halibut

[Iceman]

Does anyone have any tips to landing a big hali without a gaff?

You can slip them right on the game clip or......

paddle in to the nearest beach .......or yell "GAFF!!!"

I have tried unsuccessfully to grab em by the tail

Adi, Nice new avatar...... that looks big brown and fresh!

[GregAndrew]

Years ago I tried to land a 14 lb Halibut with an old mono net from a float tube. Soon as I started to lift the net I could hear snap, snap, snap. Since the hook was caught up in the net I just had to make a quick flop onto the top of my tube, lock my arms over the top of the fish, and kick for shore. I got real lucky. If you are going to land Halibut with a net to be released, you need to use a net with the real tiny holes to not damage the tail. I have also tried a plastic style lip gripper, but fish over 30 inches seem to be too heavy for it to hold them. Some of the metal ones should fare better, but Halibut go pretty crazy when you try to put something in their mouth, so you have to be quick.

[blitzburgh]

Awesome post.

[rossman]

Really great post. I have personalky experienced the results of not doing it correctly on a couple ocaisions.

One July early morning a couple years ago, I was out with my son out of DP. I was lucky enough to hook and land a 45 lb WSB (the one in my avatar actually). My son helped me clip it and stow it behind my seat. An hour or so later I hooked a Halibut of around 18 lbs. Was able get him gaffed but in the mouth. I beat him a couple time about the head and sholders, and thought he as ok to bring on board. Took him on board and put him under my legs cuz my clip was already being used on the WSB. My son was now 1/4 mile from me working another area. I started paddling to him to let him know that with 45 lbs of WSB and 18lbs of halibut; I was heading in. I got to within 5o yards of him and the halibut went nutzo. Slapping at my legs and chewing at my groin. Finally made one flip and he was over the side along with my gaff. A minute later my gaff pops up to the surface. The bastard was playng possum for over 30 minutes.

Another time in the same area, I landed another halibut in the 18 to 20 lb range. Gaffed him in the right spot, but probably brought him on board a little early. Had him clipped but when I brought him onto my lap he went balistic. With one flick of his broom tail, he launched my Calstar Jig Stick, and Trini 20 out of my front rod holder, and some 20 feet from my yak. That was a $700 halibut.

The point here is that there seems to be way too many steps in landing a halibut on a yak, but taking shortcuts, or just not heeding these instructions can result in a lot of interesting things happening, and most of them are bad.

[bellcon]

Not gonna tell the whole story
but I will say I fugged up on my PB halibut to date...
and this was the result:



That's from my gaff
one minute it was deep in her
the next it was deep in me...
and she was gone



great thread by the way

[yakrider]

Originally Posted by bellcon

Not gonna tell the whole story
and this was the result:



That's from my gaff
one minute it was deep in her
the next it was deep in me...
and she was gone



great thread by the way

I think you should start a new thread about how to gaff an arm!!!!
and...WTF do mean you are not going to tell the story...
how can you post that and NOT tell the story...
come on!!!!!

[ship 4 brains]

This may be a stupid question, but how and where do you clip the gills to bleed them out?

[Whizz Bang]

Okay, I love threads like this. When I first got started with this little addiction of ours, I stumbled across a BIG fish and unknowingly pissed off more than a few guys with that new guy luck. My first post on BWE was of a 41lb butt. The first fish I had ever had to gaff myself and the second fish I had ever caught on my kayak.

Here is an excerpt from that post(I was fishing a sardine on a c rig)..."In 55ft of water my clicker made a little noise, and again I thought that the kelp fairy had visited me and my little buddy. The clicker made some more noise, this time in a decidedly unkelpish manner. I stared at my rod dumbfounded. What do I do? What is happening? What is down there, and why is it messing with me? With growing fear I pulled my rod from its holder and as the line again loaded with the weight of some surely hideous leviathon, I swung and the rod bent. Idiot! Now what?

I vaguely remembered something about reeling, maybe keep some pressure on it. The fight was all vertical with a little back and forth, when I saw color, I realized this was gonna be a bit of baptism by fire. Every article about catching halibut from a kayak that I have read, stresses the difficulty and danger. Gents, this was only my second fish on this boat, the other being a foolish 14 inch calico. I prepped my gaff, and game clip and cleared my deck, all the while praying to an assorted pantheon of lower gods, and trying to keep pressure on the butt while he was doing his head shake thing. He freaked out on me three times and on the third time up, I sunk the gaff.

Somewhere between seeing color and sinking the gaff, my forebrain shut down. This was evident after I wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to get the game clip through gills and out mouth instead of in mouth and out through gills. Twice he almost pulled me in, and I must have hit him with the billy club about a hundred times in between using my gaff to rip at his gills and soft vitals. At one point I made the very dumb move of trying to stab him in the head, and as the knife slid across his armored skull, he grinned and laughed. It was a dark laugh, an evil laugh, a graveyard laugh. My bladder loosened, and the world swam before my eyes. This was it, he was gonna win. He was gonna take me down there with him to stay, forever and ever with all the little fishees.

My thoughts turned to my wife and family. What were they going to do without me? I had to live! With new found resolve, I rallied, and the rest became a blur. From the little I remember, there was a lot of screaming and flailing about. There was certainly alot of splashing. At one point I believe there may have even been a small fire. Some kindly passerby must have motored over and put it out."

Anyways, that is the way I remember it.

[dsafety]

This is one of the best how-to-do-it fishing technique posts in recent memory. Thanks to all who have contributed. Now I know how to land one. I just need to figure out how to catch one now.

Bob

[lamb]

Good stuff. Greg, that is very cool. Some great pics of each step of the way... and NICE FISH!

Very often folks bunch up to help each other when the big halibut is ID-ed on the surface. With the adrenalin rush, it is really helpful to have someone by your side to help keep cool of a situation. It sux to lose her there, and many big halibut seem to find a way and pull that off.

Andy, she my new friend. The other side of LJ, out of paddling range from the Shores. Got to meet her on Saturday. Brought her up with a silk smooth easy drag - I was hardly able to peel her of the bottom. One of a few halibut i caught that freaked out when she saw the boat... she took a hard left turn so I had to follow her over the engines, got us all into other lines in the water.

Bradley "Calm Hand" was quick as a bullet and ran the bolt through her hearth and pulled on board.

It started trashing once it hit the deck... we had to step on her, she was pissed and was raising some serious noise...

Only then,

we saw she was fault hooked...



..trebble through the friggen' eye...

crap I forgot to take that pic

[deepdvr]

Nice banana slug on the bottom of that flattie.


[/QUOTE]

[-scallywag-]

Originally Posted by Iceman

You can slip them right on the game clip or......

paddle in to the nearest beach .......or yell "GAFF!!!"

I have tried unsuccessfully to grab em by the tail

Adi, Nice new avatar...... that looks big brown and fresh!

Good thread! There's tons of big butts around ready to wreak havoc on poor unsuspecting/unprepaired yakkers like me...read this thread carefully, it may save your fish!! and when you get that big brown yak side just yell GAFF!!!!

Thanks again Driftwood for letting me borrow your gaff....I tried to collar it, i tried to pass the clip, both attempts just pissed it off and produced crazy mouth opened headshakes with slacked line ....caught on a dropperlooped greenie in 110ft....

[Iceman]

Nice Beavah!!!

warming your feet up ?!