F TIDE
ORGIVE ME, Texas, but everything truly is bigger in Alaska — especially when it comes to halibut. These flat monsters can pin you to the rail of the boat like a
triple-digit tuna, and their headshakes will leave you hanging on like a rodeo clown. You can’t help but respect a creature that routinely reaches 300-plus pounds, yet eludes even the best cap- tains at times as they hunker down in the deep or ride one of Alaska’s roaring currents to follow bait.
It has always been a dream of mine
to fish Alaska for big halibut and that dream finally became a reality when Capt. Andy Mezirow, who operates Crackerjack Sportfishing Charters out of Seward, Alaska, invited me to ride along on a three-night trip out to Alaska’s best halibut grounds, the famed Montague Island. Over the course of his fishing career,
Mezirow has tasted some of the best fishing the world has to offer, but for the last two decades or so, he’s called Seward, Alaska, home. And he’s gained a reputation for finding fish. In the last few years, Mezirow has pioneered the multi-day trip, building
the Crackerjack Voyager, a custom 48- foot Modutech, which can accommo- date as many as six anglers for two or three-night trips to Alaska’s best big- fish spots that are out of range for most private boats. We were blessed with good weather
and our group, consisting of myself, Bob Hoose from Penn/Berkley, and three Alaskan tackle shop owners, Jeff Warner, Phillip Ward, Bill Rounds and Lute Cunningham, set off on a mid- June evening to anchor at the base of the snow-peaked mountains that make up Montague Island’s McCloud Harbor,
It has always been a dream of mine to fish Alaska for big halibut and that dream finally became a reality.
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