Andy Martin, former Fishing & Hunting News editor and current fishing guide with Wild River Guide Service in Alaska, sent in this photo of one of his first charters of the young season.
While not a barn door-sized halibut, this 75-pound “closet door” ‘butt is about as big as you’d ever want to keep — the huge ones are a royal pain to fight & land; they don’t taste all that great and are mostly mature females that are best left alone to spawn.
This nice fish, and several “chickens” in the 20- to 30-pound class fell for a Berkley GULP! squid tipped with salmon belly. The action was off Montague Island, which is a long, 65-mile run out of Seward.
The first part of the run is nice (inside Resurrection Bay) but the rest of the way can be subject to nasty weather and big ground swells because (trust me, I’ve nearly puked there a few times!) it opens right up to the Gulf of Alaska.
It’s often worth the run, however, as the halibut, ling and coho fishing can be out of this world!
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