Best Way To Land a Halibut?

[Dave Legacy]

Originally Posted by Mr. NiceGuy

You and Dave are raising the same kinds of questions I'm mulling myself.

Likewise, I don't at all feel comfortable assuming something is illegal just because we can't find specific language telling us it is legal. Legality or not should be by specific regulations we can understand, not by non-specific assumptions. If it's not specifically illegal, then it should be legal by default.

I'm not arguing. I'm trying to understand. I don't know the answers to these questions.

To understand the letter of the law which doesn't seem to be spelled out in the regs, we are forced to speculate about the spirit of the law which derives from broader sources.

Assuming guilt by default and unwritten law is a nasty slippery slope.

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Lets think for a moment again about 28.65 that you bolded above under "General" ....

How can we interpret this to mean that a hook gaff, flying gaff, game clip, or lip-gripper is OK for the final assist of subduing and landing a (California halibut/Pacific halibut) where an undefined "3 1/2' hand-held straight gaff with a breakaway tip" is not, .. and how such undefined tool may or may not fall under spearfishing rules for a hand-held spear with a breakaway tip that looks and functions in exactly the same manner?

Seriously, I'm not convinced that what we are talking about here is a "harpoon" any more than it is a gaff or a spear or in the category of a self-locking lip-gripper tethered to the kayak that clips itself through the main body of the fish rather than the lip. There seems to be a general consensus that the best way to gaff a halibut is to target the stomach rather than the shoulders, boney head, shoulders or gills. If the halibut's head comes out of the water and they go berserk as they often do, a lip-gripper can easily become a lip-ripper, with lethal results when the fish gets away with irreparable damage.

I want to be a good citizen and to do what's right by local law and the laws of nature. I want to follow rules that are put in place for the greater good, if I can figure out WTF they are.

I will also try my best to respect the sanctity of life and not unnecessarily damage or maim living creatures. Morally, for me, if I'm going to catch a fish and reel him in the task should be successful and I should eat what I catch and kill. It pangs me to damage a healthy fish only to drop him back into the water as a cripple to die somewhere else. As one who respects nature and life, I want to avoid this kind of failure.

I want to do what's right. I want to successfully land what I catch. Before I pull a large, forceful, toothy halibut into my kayak between my legs, I want him to be safely subdued and sufficiently dead in a methodical and humane way.

You're making a bunch of great points. I could be dead wrong, but I have always wondered if these laws were a little confusing (dare I say gray) in order to allow some flexibility to the enforcing officer. That could be both good or bad. I've also noticed that not all wardens seem to interprate the regulations the same way which is good to consider when inquiring with the CDFW. There's a great blog where people ask for such interpretations and get back clear-cut answers; Check it out at http://californiaoutdoorsqas.com

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Originally Posted by Dave Legacy

You're making a bunch of great points. I could be dead wrong, but I have always wondered if these laws were a little confusing (dare I say gray) in order to allow some flexibility to the enforcing officer. That could be both good or bad. I've also noticed that not all wardens seem to interprate the regulations the same way which is good to consider when inquiring with the CDFW. There's a great blog where people ask for such interpretations and get back clear-cut answers; Check it out at http://californiaoutdoorsqas.com

Thanks Dave. I don't know.

I think policy and regulations should be clear for them as well as for us. I think giving the "enforcers" intentional slack for being the interpreters, judge and jury would be asking for problems. I know gray areas and conflicts are riddled throughout this system, but I don't think it's intentional. Ever-expanding regulations and bureaucracies are imperfect, to say the least. What they continually invent and proclaim as law has to be road-tested and calibrated to reality, and sometimes challenged legally for clarification or rejection.

Understanding the rules we live under should come from the official current amended regs as the original source document, from official minutes of followup meetings to define language as an official addendum, and from the results of court cases under law.

Thanks for the link to Carrie Wilson. I have been searching through her blogs to try to find these answers for myself. She writes well as an interesting blogger and journalist and she cites her credentials as a sportsman and with CDFW, but she often writes opinions what are not linked to sources. Other people then quote her and the blogisphere expands.

I don't know if she is writing and rendering opinions in an official legal capacity for the CDFW, or if she's serving in more of a PR capacity, non-binding. I'm going to guess she's not a lawyer and I'm going to guess that she's not writing as a legally binding spokeswoman for the CDFW.

At this moment, and because I have only known about her for a few days, I'm going to read what she says as interesting insight based on her experience working for CDFG, but mostly as another personal opinion of an informed columnist and writer unless she anchors her opinions and interpretations with references to officially binding documents.

I can see the logo and typestyle ".gov" stamped at the top of the page, but the website url is http://californiaoutdoorsqas.com. The reference at the bottom is WordPress.com.

Questions are submitted through the .gov website, and answered through the .com website. I don't know who is ultimately accountable for the content delivered to us by Ms. Wilson. Call me cynical, but this looks like a firewall to me.

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Please note these chosen words: "Carrie enjoys tackling the tough questions from the public and will be regularly tapping into the expertise of CDFW’s wildlife officers and many fisheries, wildlife and marine biologists to best cover all the topics."

This sounds a little squishy to me. It seems she has artistic license as a creative writer and everyone else has plausible deniability. CDFW may be reaching out for public input and/or data mining for creating policy, but I'm going to guess that what Ms. Wilson says in her regular columns is non-binding and unofficial for the CDFW. I may be completely wrong, but I think she is set up as a CDFW supported private sector liaison, technically working for herself.

Here is how Ms. Wilson presents herself in conjunction with the columns she writes:

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Columnist Carrie Wilson is a 20-year CDFW veteran and an avid outdoor enthusiast, angler and hunter. She is a marine biologist with a strong background of professional experience working in both fisheries and wildlife management. An established award-winning outdoor writer, Carrie enjoys tackling the tough questions from the public and will be regularly tapping into the expertise of CDFW’s wildlife officers and many fisheries, wildlife and marine biologists to best cover all the topics.

[GregAndrew]

The thread posted by Steveeeo in the 2nd post is a great resource. That being said, I have refined my contribution to that thread over the last 5 years.

The first mistake most people make is trying to horse the fish up. You will find many times that Halibut will be hooked by a little piece of lip or a piece of skin on the roof of their mouth.

The second mistake is not being prepared when you get the fish yakside. Have your gameclip/stringer, gaff and release tools easily accessible. If they are in your hatch, or you have to crawl out of your seat to get them they are not.

Fight the fish on the side of your kayak that your dominant hand is. You can use any hand to push the rod away from you to get the fish close. You want your coordinated hand on the gaff.

DO NOT PANIC! There is nothing that can be done quickly at this point that is not better handled deliberately. Loosen you drag a bit (not freespool or clicker only) so that if the fish should bolt you will be applying less pressure now than on the fight up. If you were fishing for WSB or YT when the Hali hit, it might be a considerable amount that you should have loosened it.

Identify what your are dealing with. Make sure you are only gaffing a certain legal fish. When in doubt lip grip it. Halibut are sensitive around the mouth, but they get desensitized quickly (you can probably get the gripper on pretty easy on the 3rd or 4th attempt). I prefer the plastic ones cause they disperse the weight over a larger area and generally do not puncture the mouth (and float). If it is definitely a release fish, then only gripper it if you need help getting the hook out. Otherwise pliers in the water always.

Ok, so now you have a Halibut that you intend to keep at the side of your kayak. The next step is to figure out how to maneuver the fish and yourself to give you a good belly shot on the fish without having to reach way out. I have had just as good of success when the fish was vertical as with laid out on the surface. Right side up or upside down has not been a problem either. It might be as simple as dragging it right along the side of your kayak. On windy days you might have to turn around so your rod faces down wind to pull the fish under you.

Gaff the belly firmly. The area behind the gill plate and the bottom (opposite side of eyes) 1/3 to 1/4 of the width of the fish. The bigger the fish, the bigger the sweet spot. A little too far back, a little to far across the width or too hard is where you will probably have issues with the fish going crazy. With a good gaff, you should only have to move your hand 6-8 inches when you gaff a Halibut in the belly. Gaff it firm, but do not make it bounce (they don't like that). Now that you are not going to make a reaching flail swing with the gaff, it makes it much easier to target about 1/2" behind the gill plate and a couple inches in from the edge.

Hold the head out of the water. Now that you have the fish on the gaff, don't make it think it is free to go by placing the head back in the water. Part of the paralysis that comes over a belly gaffed Halibut if from the weight supported by the gaff. However, if you support it too much it can work like bouncing them on the gaff shot. Your primary focus should have gone from your rod to your gaff as soon as it hit (keep it there).

Take care of business. Grab your game clip and slide it through the gills and out the mouth or vice versa and snap it shut. DO NOT LIFT the fish by the game clip at this point (see paralysis and weight above). If you already have your game clip tethered to your yak, then you can simply release it. Grab your pliers or other dehooking device and remove the hook. Then pop a couple gills with your finger or a pair of pliers.

Assess the situation. I like to bleed out all of my fish as much as I can immediately. Conditions (Sea Lions, Sharks Etc.) do not always allow that though. And Halibut, like Catfish, will stay alive a long time out of the water and bleeding. One thing I should have done long ago is to learn the divers spike method for Halibut in those instances. But just one of my legs on top of just about any Halibut is usually enough . If you do decide to leave it in the water, then do not fix you game clip directly to your kayak, but tether it (fish can open fixed game clips but tethered ones are almost impossible). Now just keep your eyes and ears open for dogs and other signs.

As far as the legal side of many of these points, we had a lengthy conversation with a group of wardens 2 years ago at the Fred Hall just about the Kage. There was not 2 of they that could agree on if it was legal or not in Cali.?

[Dave Legacy]

This might be a dumb question, but could one just scoop up a halibut in a net? I bought a collapsing net to be legal in the water, but the most economic route was a 24"x24". If I can net my 3-year-old with it I ought to be able to net at least the business end of a huge halibut, right?

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Greg Andrew, thank you so much for taking to time to recap all this valuable information for us.

And yes, a kayak sized Kage Gaff is another good name for what I'm trying to describe.

Originally Posted by Dave Legacy

This might be a dumb question, but could one just scoop up a halibut in a net? I bought a collapsing net to be legal in the water, but the most economic route was a 24"x24". If I can net my 3-year-old with it I ought to be able to net at least the business end of a huge halibut, right?

I think a basic legal size or net size halibut would not be too much trouble. With nets, you run the risk of splitting the tail of fish you let go. They can become infected with tail rot and the fish dies. Some nets work better than others. For halibut that are shorter than 22" I have been able to reach down with my pliers and grab the hook. A small shake from the fish or me usually sets him free.

I prefer to use one hook, so the release is easier. I was trying 2nd trap hooks for awhile, but I felt bad about other fish I was not targeting getting the 2nd hook lodged deeply in the throat, meaning they usually got torn up pretty bad by the time I got it out. I try to avoid collateral damage to fish I don't want to catch.

My question is about the larger size halibut we see some of the pros around here catch consistently. The power and difficulty of landing a larger halibut from a kayak goes up exponentially with the size of the fish. The fish I lost was suitable for framed photos on the wall. I want to be prepared so I don't make mistakes again when the next opportunity presents itself.

If you can net and lift your daughter, maybe your net will work well for you

I seriously want to catch and land a large halibut from my kayak, with finesse and aplomb. This thread is my homework assignment.

Opportunities like this capture my interest more than I can describe in words:

http://www.kayakfishmag.com/features...kayak-halibut/

What a great catch. I would love to hear him describe how he got that halibut into his kayak.

[jorluivil]

You'll never figure it out sitting behind a keyboard

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Originally Posted by jorluivil

You'll never figure it out sitting behind a keyboard

Mañana Mañana ... :P

Today I had to work.

[jorluivil]

Originally Posted by Mr. NiceGuy

Mañana Mañana ... :P

Today I had to work.

Good luck!

[jorluivil]

Originally Posted by Mr. NiceGuy

Mañana Mañana ... :P

Today I had to work.

Welllllllllllllllllllllll?

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by jorluivil

You'll never figure it out sitting behind a keyboard

Ummmm...just wait one minute Mister Jorge. Have you EVER caught a quality halibut? I'm just asking. Jim

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Originally Posted by jorluivil

You'll never figure it out sitting behind a keyboard

Was that typed sitting behind a keyboard?

Just curious.

[jorluivil]

Originally Posted by Mr. NiceGuy

Was that typed sitting behind a keyboard?

Just curious.

Yes, it was. I typed that after I finished eating the halibut I had just grilled.