Friday the 13th - Bad Luck & Good Luck

Left to Right: Kevin Gray, Jim Hicks, both from San Francisco, CA, Jim Pook, Tahsis.

Got up at 4:15 AM after about 3 hours sleep and headed down to the dock to meet Jim Hicks and Kevin Gray to board Jim's boat "Defiance".

The plan was to run out to Maquinna Point on the outside South end of Nootka Island in search of Halibut after friends Tyler and his dad Don reported that they had lost a huge Halibut there that was too big for them to lift into the boat with the gaff they had.

Friday the 13th took its revenge and gave us Gale Force winds on the outside. However we were able to troll for Salmon from Maquinna Point back to the Nootka Lighthouse around Wash Rock and Eagle Rock. A couple of passes of the prime Salmon holding spots gave up only one small Lingcod that was released unharmed.

We trolled our way around the Lighthouse to Friendly Cove and managed to catch one small Chinook. I gave up on the Anchovy/Flasher combo and put on one of my favorite hootchies, which was hit by a nice Chinook shortly afterwards. Problems with the Scotty Downrigger brake took my attention away from the fish to stop a free-falling downrigger ball just long enough for slack line to drop the barbless hook.

As it was now slack tide around 10:30 AM we decided to try our hand at a Halibut drift outside of Friendly Cove. I picked up a nice Yelloweye around 240' and shortly afterward got hit by what I thought would be another Yelloweye - 50 turns of the Penn 340 reel handle and all of a sudden this fish came to life, pulling line quickly from a very tight drag! Halibut! I cranked it up from about 320' and got it to the surface after a couple of short runs back toward the bottom.

I loosend the drag a bit and handed the rod to Jim while I picked up the harpoon. Before I could line up the fish for a clear shot it headed down and stripped a 100' of line from the reel. I took back the rod and cranked him back toward the surface and a future date with some beer batter and a deepfryer.

At the surface I handed off the rod to Jim again and lined up with the harpoon - perfect shot, dead center through the stomach. I was almost disapointed that he did not make a final run to the end of the rope.

A quick hoist over the side and he was on the deck of the boat. Gills cut and put in the fish box, I had to make another cut in the tail to fold him up to close the lid!

We spent another hour or so drifting the area, but with wind, waves and tide picking up, it was time to head home. Back at the dock, the Halibut weighed in at 39 pounds.