Halibut Fishing

I came back to Homer specially for this.  This is the grand finale of my Alaska trip before I return to Phoenix.  I love fishing.  When I saw pictures and actually saw the deck hands filleting halibut, lingcod, and salmon around the Homer Spit, I was hooked.  Some of the halibut that were caught were over 200 pounds!  Of course, I'll be happy even if I catch one that is around 100 pounds.

I signed up with North Country Halibut Charters.  It costs about $180 for a 3/4 day fishing trip.  There are some that are for 1/2 day and some that are full day.  The one I signed up for is for halibut only.  The longer trips are usually for multiple variety of fish.

Fishing boat "Irish" that took us halibut fishing

For those not familiar with the halibut fish, it's a very good eating fish.  It has white, slightly firm meat and usually served in fillets.  A halibut dinner usually costs around $25-$30 in the US.  It's the biggest flat fish, which means it swims flat, like a flounder, usually at the ocean bottom.  The top part of the fish is brown, the bottom is white.  When caught, they fight very hard.  I understand that it's one of the strongest fish.   You can read more about halibuts here.

A recently caught halibut

We have to get an Alaska fishing license in order to fish.  Our limit is 2 halibuts - one that is any size, the other must not be bigger than 29 inches.  Our captain first took us to an area where there are a lot of big halibuts.  That way we can catch our bigger fish first.  Unfortunately, the fishing was quite slow.  Only 4 or 5 of us caught a fish, the biggest about 50 lbs.  After 3 or 4 hours of frustration, the captain took us to an area where the water is much deeper.  As soon as we dropped our lines we were catching fish.  Not very big but around 30 inches.  After a while all of us on the boat caught our limit.
Everyone went home happy.

This fish is about 25 inches long, my second fish

All the fish that our boat caught - limit of 2 each

Our deck-hand David cleaning and filleting a fish

When we got off the boat there were a couple of guys waiting for us to take our fish and help us freeze, pack or ship them.  It's a separate company and it costs us extra.  I am going to vacuum pack, freeze and have them put in a box so that I can check in with the airline.

Tomorrow (July 16, 2015) I am flying home.  I am driving from Homer to Anchorage, hang around Anchorage a little bit before taking a red-eye flight first to Los Angeles, then to Phoenix.  I will give some closing thoughts to this amazing trip to Alaska when I get home.