Editor’s note: This weight is estimated and the landing was assisted. A fish came to scale in Washington in 2016 reported at 124# and we are pursuing that listing.
Troy Button, Alaska-Pacific Halibut
On the evening of June 24th, 2014 some good friends Joe Larson, Josh Gilliland and I went fishing on Monashka Bay in Kodiak Alaska in our Scrambler XT Ocean Kayaks.
Angler account- “We started the evening off chasing black rock bass with very little success and decided it was time to go after some big halibut. We moved out to about 300 ft of water and dropped our rigs to the bottom, on about our third drift through the hole and five min after I hit bottom I got a nibble and then another and on the third hit I was able to set the hook and start the fight. The fish immediately started pulling my boat through the water at a pretty decent clip and then all of a sudden it went slack and I thought for sure the fish was gone. As I reeled in the slack to check my bait it dawned on me that the fish had only stopped and I had drifted past him and as I reeled my line taught he ran again and the fight was back on. This back and forth continued for another forty minutes before I saw the fish and started the real fight of getting him landed.
Once we had eyes on the fish and I was able to finally get him to arms length we had three failed gaff attempts but after some fancy knife work by big Joe we had the fish bleeding, I sunk the gaff under his chin and gave a number of good thumps with our fish bat and then waited. Finally thirty minuets later I was able to get a rope through his jaw, tie him off to the boat and the fish was mine.
With a little team work from my pals to carry him to the truck we got him home and measured him at 63in. and 127.8 lbs (estimated).”
