Rigging for Halibut

[Softball4Ever]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if I could get some help from you. I have been taking my son out fishing every day that halibut has been open so far this year. He asked me a couple of months ago if I would take him out so he could catch one. So I looked online and found out what days it was open, borrowed a friends boat and off we went. We have been going to Sequim as it is close to where we live. He loves halibut and we buy it all the time so catching one would be a double whammy for him.

We have seen allot of people catching them and tried our best to copy what they are doing. But we are still getting skunked every-time. My son is being a trooper about it, and tying his best to act like it is not bumming him out, but I can tell that it is getting to him. I have never really done much saltwater fishing so this is all very new to me.

The reason I am emailing you is because I was listening to your program on Sat. morning (5/18/14). You mentioned something about rigging up with hearing and octopus? Can you give me some advice on how to rig up, and what to use to help our chances the next time we are out. Do you know of any good online resources that would have pictures and or videos of good ways to rig up and techniques for fishing for halibut in the Sequim area or any good spots in that area to fish?

I borrowed a friends boat and payed to moor it at John Wayne Marina so that we didn't have to launch it every-time we wanted to go out, so that is the general area we will be fishing unless you think that we would have better luck taking the boat out of the water and relaunching somewhere else.

We plan on going again a couple more times before the season ends so any advice you can give us would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

[Brandon]

Stick with it man!

Fishin' the Straits is just plain out a grind.

Yesterday was tough fishing with that huge tide exchange. The water moved 9 feet in just under 7 hours which is a big swing. Unless, that is.. you were anchored but Im gonna guess you drift.

There is a ton of things that play into gettin a Hali but Ill try a name a few. For example, yesterday when you had a big tide swing like that, just drive out to your spot and kill the motors and drop your rig down you notice your line angle at a 45 straight out the back of the boat. Use your kicker motor and back down on it until you get that line straight up and down. This helps in keeping your set up on that bottom 10 feet. Along with keeping that line angle straight up and down it will slow your speed over ground down. Id say your best most effective speeds are gonna be from .5 to 2.0. Yesterday at times i had a ground speed of 5 knots and that was while I was backing into the current. This weekends set of tides is much much better and you wont have to worry about that as much.

There is many different things to use for halis. I use a spreader bar with a 2 pound cod sinker and a black label herring. Then I take a really large plastic squid or hootchie and slide that over the top. The tenticles off the hootchie will give you movement on the bottom and if for some reason your bait falls off you still got the hootchie. Salmon bellies, squids, sardines, tuna bellies all work for bait but I personally feel herring out fishes them all in the sound.

As for where to go... Halis love to set up on the edges of banks, humps, hills, shelfs, ect.. so watch your gps and see how your drifting and start your drift a few 100 yards from where you wanna be and drift over it. Outdoorline has some good vids on hali stuff and John Martinis of John's Sporting Goods has some good vids as well. Hope that helps man. Keep at it.. you will get one!

[Brandon]

I shot you a PM with a few spots to try.

[Nelly]

Thanks for that Brandon! There's not a lot I can add to your excellent post and your point to stick with it is absolutely correct! It doesn't take long to get well!!!

Good luck out there SB and here's the video that John Martinis put together from our halibut trip earlier this spring aboard "Great White". Hope it helps and I hope you have halibut for dinner this weekend!

http://video.theoutdoorline.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6fffe2ee4ddf4a988880&page=1&viewtype=basic&category=mr

[MisGuided1]

Here is a link to John's Sporting Goods Fishing Maps. Excellent source of places to try:

http://www.johnssportinggoods.com/index.php/johns-maps/