Fished Saturday with my son Ryu in the Anchor Point Calcutta King Derby. I had to bid $225 for Ryu's kayak when mine only went for $150, LOL. Kayakers did great though with SwansonSilver from the NWKA boards placing 3rd overall!
For Ryu and I, we only managed one King Salmon of maybe 10 pounds that I released, But the fishing was ON! The bad news...they were mainly 5 to 10 pound halibut.
After the derby was done at 4pm, Ryu wants to fish halibut so off we go. We land a LOAD of fish. But they were small. We keep the three largest fish and they went roughly 20, 25, and 40 pounds.
Maybe the most interesting part of the weekend was the super sunny days, clear waters, and aggressive halibut made for some interesting episodes of halibut chasing our baits on top.
So here's one of those episodes. Halibut follows my bait up. Looks at my sinker and swivels. Then runs off to check out the commotion Ryu's small halibut is causing and hits Ryu's swivel. Then it comes back to grab my bait and I hook it. Crazy!!!! I bet we saw a dozen halibut come to the top. Can you imagine if a 100 pounder followed it up!!!
So here's my first video of the weekend....The crazy topwater halibut.
So the full report...sort of. Bits and pieces of it at any rate.
Short version: So a 3 day weekend. Total was 2 kings and 6 chickens. Not bad.
Long version:
First day was a tad sporty. Ended up with a small king and a couple of chickens that averaged maybe 15 to 20 pounds. After limiting on halibut, I begin trolling for kings. In 30 minutes I had a couple of take downs and landed a small 10 pounder.
I did deploy the down rigger camera. Some might find it boring but I watched it a few times. Definitely have some take aways from the clips. Too bad all the fish are 5 to 10 pounders. Be fun to see a 50 pound fish come crashing in. Can't use a down rigger, the halibut will just follow along forever. Maybe a bigger one will just grab and go. I think spoons might be as effective as the bait. One clip I didn't add because I found it later was when I clipped the down rigger release to the 200 pound mono. No swivel so the bait wouldn't roll. There was a small halibut that came up to it and then just left. I think because the herring didn't have action. Larger fish trolling seems reasonable given the clip with two fish. Stopping once after the strike, letting the fish reposition the bait, then setting the hook seems prudent.
Down rigger takes up too much space, but I will try it again maybe when I have my son with me for more storage.
Day 2, Started fishing halibut. Headed South. Super Slow at first. Water super dirty. As the tide begins o come back in, the water clarity improved and it was non-stop action. I bet I landed 20 halibut. All 10 pound-ish or less. Kept one 10 pounder and started to head in. Strong winds and huge tides started to carry me back too fast. I changed my halibut gear for salmon gear so I could troll faster back in. Right at the launch as I was about to pick up gear, a 20 pound halibut strikes my salmon gear and I get carried a quarter mile past the launch and the current is ripping. Beached there and thankfully I bought a 4wd truck so drove down and got my kayak.
Day 3. Decided with the derby coming up, I better try kings. 6oz of weight, a flasher and green label herring. First 5 minutes I go to talk to James on a kayak. I hook a 5 pound halibut. 10 minutes later, I am hooked up to a 15 pound-ish king. I was going to release it and fish some more, but decided I would go catch two halibut and quit early. Managed to bring the fish in without a net...though I had one. Couple hundred yards past the markers and 1.3 miles out, I manage two chickens right as the tide is turning and start heading in just as the current was turing north. Launched at 9:30am. Out of the water by 1pm. Not bad.
So first the underwater video. I'll edit out my gopro video though rain and moisture in my housing made for less than stellar footage.
