For this trip the crew was myself, grandson Bryan (11), grandson Tyler (12), and step son Steven.
Steven is the ultimate fisherman (I wonder who taught him?), so we were expecting good results.
On the way out of town we passed these JABY's (Just Another Big Yacht) at the Ellis Law firm private docks. Several years ago the Ellis Law firm realized they had a gold mine sitting in front of their offices. They got the necessary permits and built some docks right in front of their offices that can accommodate 4 or 5 big yachts. Of course they sit empty in the winter. But over the summer they are busy and I'm sure generate considerable income to the firm.
Here is the general area where we were bottom fishing:
I carry two anchors and rodes on my boat.
One is on the anchor winch, and I use that for anchoring overnight.
It is a 20 kg Rocna anchor in which I have complete faith.
It has 150' of chain and 200' of rope on its rode.
My spare anchor, and halibut fishing anchor, is a standard Danforth anchor, probably about 30 lbs, with about 30' of chain, and over 400' of line.
It is not on the winch, and we use a buoy pull system in order to pull it.
It is difficult to describe how the buoy pull system works.
A large buoy is attached to the anchor line with a collar.
The collar has a sliding bolt in it designed such that the line will not slide through it in one direction unless it is held open manually.
The effect of this is that you can use the buoy as a pivot point on the surface, and the power of the boat's engines to pull up most of the line (until the chain hits the collar.) You can pull in all the rope easily because it is all slack, with the buoy holding the weight of the chain and the anchor.
The chain and the anchor itself must be pulled in by hand.
It is somewhat difficult to use, but having a couple of young, strong crewmen available helps a lot.
We anchored on a spot that seemed likely.
Before too long Bryan had his birthday halibut, about 30 lbs.
The weather was nice, and it was pleasant laying there on the hook fishing.
Around noon we made lunch and left the rods in the rod holders, just hanging.
All of a sudden we heard "Zing," and I wondered, "What was that?"
Then I realized it was one of the rods, and line was peeling off the reel.
We ran out there and took turns reeling it in, with Bryan and Tyler doing most of the heavy lifting.
I gave up carrying scales on the boat because they always corroded over time.
We have a halibut length to weight conversion table in the tide book.
That fish was 56", which converts to about 87 lbs live weight.
Around 2 PM the seas started kicking up a bit but we got another little one.
We call these little ones "Chickens."
We pulled anchor and moved inside Thorne Arm to a spot where we've caught fish before.
It's a lot more protected in there, but of course the fishing is not as good.
We got no halibut in there.
Around 5:30 PM we pulled anchor and moved inside Moth Bay for our overnight anchorage.
It is real protected in there, and I've anchored in there numerous times.
It's a pretty tight little hole, but since we were the only ones around, we had no problem getting securely anchored for the night.
Steven and the kids went to work on the fish, and I went to work on dinner.
Dinner was halibut and hamburgers - yummy.
After dinner Steven and the kids set up the raft and went to shore and built a fire.
I didn't have the energy for that, but they really enjoyed themselves, even in the rain.
In the morning we had a good breakfast and pulled anchor, heading out for some more bottom fishing.
We tried the South end of Bold Island, and amazingly Bryan got another small halibut.
He hooked and played this one all by himself, with Steven just helping by gaffing it.
After a couple hours of unsuccessful salmon trolling at Mountain Point we dropped down on the SE end of Pennock Island for one last shot at bottom fishing.
Bryan did it again!
These are those last two halibut that Bryan got:
Overall it was a pretty good trip, and we've got some good meat for the freezer.
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