halibut rig

[sasha]

For you guys that go after Halibut. Can you post pics of the rigs you use. Or what ever other advice you got..
Thanks

[William Novotny]

This is the basic hali rig I use, but I also have had luck using a simple carolina rig. [IMG]http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee392/williamnovotny/
hali_20rig_348_528.jpg[/IMG]
Hope this helps.

[ful-rac]

Here you go!

[William Novotny]

[William Novotny]

Haha bern trying to get my photobucket copy to paste correctly

[sasha]

Thanks that should be easy

[jorluivil]

Here's a good reason to use a trap hook

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[SquidJig]

Originally Posted by jorluivil

Here's a good reason to use a trap hook

http://youtu.be/Lb9bqUpyICY

Great video. I want one of those cameras! Thanks for posting the link, George.

[Luis_Ochoa]

Originally Posted by SquidJig

Great video. I want one of those cameras! Thanks for posting the link, George.

x2

[mtnbykr2]

And here I thought Jorge was gonna show his trap hook video...
thanks for the great video amigo, very interesting and informative

[MVC]

I use the same setup as ful-rac. I also use mono instead of spectra. I lose alot less halibut that way.

[lowprofile]

and everyone still insists they just lay there and you have to bumb them to get them to bit. i've seen them hit top waters.

[sasha]

For some reason i thought that the strike would be faster and harder.. Intresting how it slowly got close and just sucked the bait in.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by lowprofile

and everyone still insists they just lay there and you have to bumb them to get them to bit. i've seen them hit top waters.

Really!!! I am constantly amazed at the quality information I see on the internet. Can you give us some hints of good topwater plugs for halibut?

I mean you got me here. I've caught Halibut on flies in the surf but they were wet flies not dry flies. What are we talking about zara spooks, Lunker Punkers, or hula poppers? I've caught plenty of fish local on topwater lures: Calico bass, Barracuda, Tuna, Yellowtail, even White seabass, but if you know a sure fire way to fish halibut on topwater Dude!!! Don't hold back inquiring minds want to know!!!

The vids great. It's an Atlantic Halibut similar to the kind of Pacific Halibut they catch in Alaska.


They caught it in Scandinavia up around the arctic circle along with a few bigger ones. That jig is not a imitation of a goldfish it's a imitation of a red rockfish. Atlantic halibut evidently feed mostly on rockfish, which is not surprising when you consider they live in the same depths around the same structures in those Northern latitudes.

Those type of big halibut are much more aggressive and get roughly eight times the size of our California Halibut.

Here's a nice vid of a bunch of small ones feeding on top.

I sure wish we had those fish local.

I'm sure those jigs would work great in Alaska, then again for those kinds of fish they mostly fish whole salmon heads for bait, not something that works down here.

I do wish I could buy those jigs local, as they also make one that's a great little halibut imitation, but I'd use them for Ling Cod, not butts in our waters.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that halibut only lie in the sand munching on sardines, or that they won't eat plugs. I've caught halibut on kinds of stuff: flies, minnow like plugs in the surf, krocodiles, megabaits, diamondjigs, Iron, various plastics, down rigged diving plugs like rapalas, weighted minnow type baits, bounce ball gear, etc etc etc..

Then again I've caught them on whole lizard fish, tomcod, and macks over a foot long. It's all about getting something in front of them that they will eat when they want to chew, and it's not always the same thing.

The reality is more of them are caught off the sand fishing small baits' like Sardines and anchovies then any other way, and the majority of mine have come off the bottom using gear that's rigged pretty similar to what ful-rac posted above. It's the go to rig for a reason, it works.

I wish we had big aggressive fish like that Atlantic halibut in the vid, that would chase down rockfish sized trolling lures, if we did I'd fish them. Hey and if you know where we can catch fish like that without driving to the Atlantic or up to the arctic circle, I mean like local, especially on topwater lures!!! Dude you're the FN Man!!! Spit out that info cause I'm all on it.


Jim

[lowprofile]

jim, yes its zara spooks , 20lb braid with 12 floro leader, mexican knot (usually) and any beach with a shallow grade that you can work it in 2-4ft of water throughout your cast. done it in oceanside, torrey pines, del mar and santa monica.

[dorado50]

Man thats alot of halibuts you have caught! You must take home alot of cash from all the halibut tourneys around here.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by dorado50

Man thats alot of halibuts you have caught! You must take home alot of cash from all the halibut tourneys around here.

What can I say it's Santa Monica Bay. We just don't have the fish you guys have down In La Jolla. Used to be for most of the year the only quality fish you could consistently catch around here were halibut. Back in the 90s it's about all we fished for, other then Mako's in the summer.

I used to live right next to the beach in Venice and surf fished every day before work, then got a different job, moved on to my boat in a slip at Redondo, and pretty much fished there every day after work while living there. That's when I really started fishing Halibut. When I got tired of the live aboard thing, I built a skiff that I used for butts out of MDR, and then ran a Sportfisher out of MDR for a while. So yeah I've targeted and got a few butts, in a few different ways. After a while it adds up. For me I remember almost every trip I catch fish though the weights and dates get murky.

Check this one out...

That's got to be well over a decade ago. I look like a kid... You can see where I'm fishing, it's not SMB but local, and I'd say that fish was probably around ten.

That day I was fishing with a real Halibut expert, a man who used to commercially hook and line fish them in the harbor. He was fishing is standard thirty pound gear working trapped rigged baits with eight ounce sinkers. I was fishing a Kencor 10-30 zebra, my dads old ABU 5600c with twenty pound spectra, seventeen pound Stren Fluorocarbon, both of which were new things back then, rigged with a red plastic slide, four once sinker, three feet of leader and a snelled trap hook. That's only the second reel I ever spooled with spectra, and the first time I used it for anything other then offshore tuna fishing. No-buddy was using it for anything other then backing back then.

We got three halibut that day. I got all three but what was really cool was early that morning I hooked and released a 70 pound Black seabass at the long beach end of the harbor on that same rig. That was a pretty rare catch there back in the day. Tuff fish to get to the boat on just a 17lb leader. Before I hooked that Black my buddy was giving me a hard time about light tackle, and spectra. He honestly thought it would cost me fish, but he didn't say much after that Black.


As to Money yeah well I guess you could say I won my share, mostly from the monthly MDR bait dock jackpot.

This fish from the same time period netted me a few bucks.

Same gear but in SMB. That morning it was dead calm with no current so I was casting and working a glow scampi tipped with squid, bouncing it next to some stones up at the Getty. We got three fish over twenty two of which were over thirty in a couple of weeks there, though that was the only one landed on plastic.

Personally I never liked fishing the big Santa Monica Bay tournaments. With the sheer numbers of fisherman they put on the water it becomes more about the luck then skill.

I have fished a few of them mostly because people just talked me into doing it with them. I only know one guy who ever won big money. He got his fish maybe a quarter mile away from me. 40+ pounds bigger then my best, hell of a catch on the ten or twelve pound which is what he was using. We'd been sharing info all morning. When he got it I told him he'd won the fn lottery.

Jim

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by lowprofile

jim, yes its zara spooks , 20lb braid with 12 floro leader, mexican knot (usually) and any beach with a shallow grade that you can work it in 2-4ft of water throughout your cast. done it in oceanside, torrey pines, del mar and santa monica.

Fair enough.

You know I've been fishing SMB surf for a few decades and I have never seen anyone throwing a Zara Spook.

Lot's of swimbaits, grubs, Krocks, even a crystal minnow or two but no surface lures. I have seen some halibut caught and caught a few myself but never seen one come up for a Z-spook.

Working the Grunion runs? So how many stripers you caught? In SMB I'd think you are more likely to get a striper then a butt on a spook. I've actually thought often about trying them there just for stripers.

Be that as it may. If your getting butts in three feet of water they are still ambush feeding off the bottom and you are still hitting them on the head, or presenting the lure right in front of them. California halibut are more adapted to sand and ambush feeding where the larger Pacific and Atlantic halibut feed more aggressively up and down the water column. You can see it in their body shape. Our halibut are flatter on one side where the big boys are more symmetrical side to side, and have a more streamlined diamond shape then our halibut.

I'm not saying they do not hit lures cuz they do, but they just are not as aggressive as their bigger relatives.

Hey and thanks for the info. I'm not joking! I'm actually going to try it. I've fished a lot of stripers with surf gear. There is nothing I like better then chucking surface lures with long rod and spinning surf gear.

Anyone else notice that that big halibut never took the baits head in it's mouth, now that is reminiscent of our halibut

[jorluivil]

I decided to take upon the task of fishing both with and without a trap hook and WOW!

With trap hook
5 brown rockfish
3 sculpin
1 HUGE octopus
0 lizard fish


Here are two pics of some of the big hits that I missed on the single hook setup























Here's a pic of the ONLY fish that was landed on a single (circle) hook. And just so that no one gets the impression that I'm for some reason I'm submitting the same fish even though I've caught and weighed most if not all of my fish in front of others I'll start submitting pics of the underside showing the gaff shot.

[Adam12]

Congrats on another nice Halibut Jorge.