was a blast and that’s how I hooked the first halibut of my life. It always hap- pens when you least expect it. I was bouncing that grub over the bottom on a 8-foot Penn Carnage jig stick with my back to the stern so I could take part in the conversation when WHAM!
He has no desire
to fill the fish holds with breeder-sized animals that aren’t the best eating.
The light Penn Torque 15 reel on the
long jig stick was comfortable, easy to use and could dish out enough heat to lift up this welcome-mat sized fish. The boys called my catch a “chicken” and threw it back, but I was elated. Over the course of the next hour, the
fish progressively got bigger, going from chickens to roosters. Then roost- ers to turkeys, but we held out for a Derby winner and released several fish in the 100- to 150-pound class. Each year, the town of Seward hosts
a Halibut Derby during the month of June. A big board hangs at the dock, showing the leading fish caught each day. Mezirow has won the Derby three times and placed in the money more than 10 times.
NEW RELEASE TECHNIQUE Mezirow sits on an advisory panel
to the North Pacific Fishery Manage - ment Council and knows quite a bit about the state of this fishery. He understands how these fish feed and the state of the population. He has no desire to fill the fish holds with breeder- sized animals that aren’t the best eating. Before we left the dock, Mezirow
explained the status of the fishery and asked us how we’d feel about keeping only the best-eating fish — those rang- ing from 40 to 70 pounds. We all agreed and decided to release any chickens as well as the big females that are laden with eggs — all fish between 80 and 200 pounds would get a free pass. That’s not always an easy sell as many people regard halibut as a meat fish, but not Mezirow. To him, these fish keep his boat booked and he respects their elusive behavior, their fight and their status. If we were lucky to land
TIDE
one more than 200 pounds we would think about taking it for the Derby, but we all agreed that we would keep only one Derby fish for the entire trip. “Trust me, with two days fishing,
we’ll still have more than enough fish for everyone to take home,” Mezirow said. He couldn’t have been more spot-on. Each angler is allowed two halibut
of any size per day, including the cap- tain and crew. On our first day, we lim- ited by 10 a.m. The sun was out and the seas held only a small ground swell. The conditions and the catch couldn’t have been better. We kept on fishing and got into a solid bite of yelloweye rockfish, lingcod and black bass. We also got a chance to perfect a new release technique that Mezirow had been developing. Pulling a big halibut into the boat is
like tossing a bucking bull onto the deck. Rather than wrestle with the fish, Mezirow has developed a simple tool to get the circle hook out of the fish’s mouth while the animal is still safely in the water next to the boat. Before we left the dock, he ran over to the hard- ware store and bought a wooden broom handle. He drilled a hole through the tip of the stick and ran a small bolt through the hole. To each end of the bolt he attached a piece of stain- less wire, forming a U shape with the wire. The entire rig cost him less than $10 to make. Using this release stick, he can grab
the barb of the exposed circle hook with the wire at the end of the broom handle and have his mate snip the leader. He then pulls the hook and leader right through hole of entry. The eye of the hook and the leader just pull right through and the fish can freely swim back down to its inky lair. Halibut do not have swim bladders so there is no worry about pressurization problems like those encountered by snappers and rockfish. They just swipe that big broom-shaped tail and motor straight down. Over the course of two days, we
released eight fish weighing more than 100 pounds, including a 140-pounder that I caught on day two.
LEAVE SOME FOR NEXT TIME After the first day of fishing, we
decided to spend the night at Port Ashton Lodge, a gorgeously simple spot located on the shores of Sawmill Bay and accessible only by dock. The lodge is owned by the Talvi family and
www.joincca.org
boasts four cabins, a cookhouse and even a wood-fired hot tub on the beach. On the second day, we tried a deeper
corner of Montague in the search for a Derby winner. Unlike our first day of fishing, it took a little while to get that first bite. “It’s like that,” Mezirow says.
“Guys think you just find some struc- ture and drop down the bait and instantly fill your limit, but you really have to know what to look for in all sorts of situations. The tides here are some of the strongest in the world, so if you don’t set the boat just right you aren’t going to get bit. And a lot of times it takes a while to get the scent out and the fish to come up. You just have to be patient and wait it out. It will turn on.” The captain was right. We were fish-
ing in about 300 feet of water when the switch flipped and mayhem ensued as halibut attacked our herring, jigs and whole salmon carcasses. Again, the weather held, making for gorgeous vis- tas the entire time. Even if we hadn’t caught a single
thing, the trip would’ve been worth it. I’ve never seen country like this. The shoreline is rimmed with snowcapped mountains that run on as far as you can see, bald eagles fly around like seagulls and hump- back whales are your neighbors on the fishing grounds. It is spectacular. Like any fishery, it pays to go out
with an experienced captain and few, if any, know these waters as well as Mezirow. Having the four Alaska resi- dents on the boat really hammered home how amazing our trip was. “We released more halibut on this
trip than I’ve seen in the last five years, and I’ve seen some big chicken runs,” Cunningham said, who’s a boat owner himself and fishes eight or nine times every summer for halibut. “We nor- mally catch a limit, but not on a quality of fish like this. I really commend the captain for sticking to his guns and releasing those big breeders. We’ll go home with more than enough fish for everyone, and it feels good to know that we left quite a few more out there for the next guy. I hope the other cap- tains here follow his lead.”
Charlie Levine has covered sport fishing
for more than a decade with editorial posts at magazines such as Marlin and Sport Fishing. Currently he is the editorial direc- tor of
www.bdoutdoors.com, home to the largest online community of saltwater anglers.
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