Sunday, June 5, 2011 The Bait of Choice – June 5th Halibut Trip

There has been a significant amount of water moving this week with the new tide cycle.  The crew and I had picked up a bunch of King Salmon carcasses for bait this week on the Kasilof River.  The Kings seemed to be the bait of choice for this trip.  We landed two fish over #100lbs and 5 other fish over #50lbs all on the carcasses.  We fished the incoming tide that started at about 9:50am, a perfect tide that funnels all the scent down a small passage in 70′ of water.  The Halibut started showing up after the first hour and our second chum bomb.  It was a slow bite as usual at a hog spot, but to pull a few nice fish of a hole is well worth the wait.  The jigs however did not fire for us, which is very unusual for this specific area.  After a few hours at our first spot we pulled anchor and moved three miles off shore to a spot with a heavier concentration of halibut.  The wind was blowing a steady 15 knots out of the SW by 3:00pm and we drug anchor on the initial drop.  After reseting the anchor we were able to hold right above a school of halibut ranging #15lbs – #35lbs.  After a few hours, the boat was limited with 54 halibut and a variety of species of rockfish.  Another great day of fishing in the Gulf of Alaska.