Big Bear Halibut Charter

Saturday, July 27th. We woke up early again, got ready, enjoyed a typical hotel breakfast and drove a few minutes down to the Homer Spit where we found Big Bear Halibut Charters. We went with them last year and liked them so much we decided to stick with them, and it was an even better experience than last year. (That's according to the others, I wasn't there last year.) But it was certainly a TON better than the one I went on a few weeks ago with just Kenny. The boat's a lot bigger, the captain and deck hand were awesome, and we saw lots of wildlife. It was just really good. They provide chips, cookies, drinks, etc. too which is always a nice perk :). When we first got on, we stopped after just a few minutes and they had us catch our own bait, which was fun. We very quickly caught lots of pollock. I had never known what they were, but they told us that whenever you buy frozen fish sticks, or McDonalds fish sandwiches, etc. you're eating pollock. Good to know! :) We rode in the boat for about 3 hours out to the Barren Islands to go fish there. Of course we were all exhausted and slept almost the whole time, which was a very welcome rest.

 

It didn't take long to start catching fish once we got going. They were so much bigger than I was expecting. It was fun to be with a whole boat of our own group, not strangers. That made a difference, too.

Mike's first time halibut fishing!

 

 

The highlight of the trip was when Eric caught the mother fish :). It was HUGE! It took him a long time to reel it in and we could tell it was going to be big because of how he was shaking and really struggling. And he's a strong guy! Once they got it close, the captain pulled out his gun and shot him so they could drag him into the boat. See below. It was a bloody mess, and it wouldn't even fit in the big bin where they keep all the rest of the fish. So we just walked around him the rest of the time haha. It was super awesome. It ended up weighing in at like 156 pounds!

 

 

It was so cool to hear and see whales while we were out there fishing. All of the sudden there would be this loud blowing/splashing and know there was a whale not too far. Sometimes we could see it, sometimes we could only hear it because of how heavy and dense the fog was.

 

Once the current came in it was pretty much impossible to fish because of how hard it was pulling everything. But we had all caught our fish and were good to go anyway.

On our way back the captain found some good wildlife for us. We saw porpoises racing along, humpback whales, sea lions, and of course the birds. I love watching puffins fly--they're so frantic looking.



humpback whales barely showing to the left of those rocks

See those two big papas on the rocks, and the others playing in the water below them

Sun bathing

I couldn't get over how beautiful it is out there!

Eric with his trophy fish :)

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We had the second largest fish, around 53 or so pounds. I say "we" because I caught it, and Kenny reeled it in  :)



This is what our van looked like coming home. Those two coolers were stuffed full, then that huge bag. We ended up with over 250 pounds of fileted halibut!! That's a lot of fish!!!

It's a good thing that we had lots of different people taking some home. I just wish they could have fit more in their carry-on coolers :).
It was such a fun day where we made lots of memories and had a great time together. Not to mention all the halibut we will be eating once a week for the next year or so! :)
We still had a 5 hour drive back to Anchorage and got in around 2 a.m.
All was well when we got back and the kids had a great time with Grandma. We were so grateful to her for watching them so we could go enjoy that time together.