Batman briefs:
Halibut vs. Axman and Batman. 5 Rounds and the winner is…
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Axman and I left early this am (Kicker went to town yesterday to get a haircut) to check shrimp traps Axman put out in the back bay yesterday. He set them right next to Slice’s (Jim’s) ‘cause he is about the only guide bringing in some healthy loads of shrimps. Pulled the first trap and there were just two, count ‘em, 2 edible size prawns in there! We are hoping for much better results on the second trap but are disappointed with the handful of smaller “tiger” shrimp we got. I pinched all their little horny heads off and put them on ice for safe keeping. Now we have the chores done we can get down to bidness; fishing for BIG HALIBUT!
Everything under 50 lbs is going back in the water! That’s the plan anyway… We figure on fishing the “31” today. Seeing as we pulled that 84.5 pounder off of the “Main” yesterday we thought we shouldn’t pressure the fish there and give it rest. We call it “The 31” because that is the number that shows the depth on the chart we use. Depth is measured in fathoms on the chart. I had a guest pull a 55 lb halibut off that “hill” a few days ago and we figured it had a long enough rest that we could pound the bottom and scare up at least one more, maybe two off the bottom. We stop at the top and start fishing down the slope. I was using a strip of salmon belly on one hook and a herring on the other, both attached to a one pound cannonball and pounding the bottom with a jigging motion, up and down, up and down. Axman was using a chunk of salmon belly on a circle hook, with a one pound weight, keeping it just off the bottom. He was working the kicker motor and it is kinda’ hard to bounce your rig off the bottom and run the troller at the same time; although it has been done J. We didn’t really get off to a bang up start and drifted around a bit trying to call ‘em in to take a bite of the breakfast offering we had for them this morning. We know they are down there on this slow moving, rising tide, and it is just a matter of time and place before they feed. We are starting to get antsy, talking to the halibut, coaxing them to try some delicious, precut salmon belly to start their day. Now we are moving back up the hill; I’m still bouncing my baits off the bottom, keeping out of the rocks for the most part, trying to avoid the snags. Axman gives the motor a shot of gas and I get a little snag and pull the bait off the bottom and let it back down. That little bit of action got John’s attention but I figured it was just a little bump on a rock ‘cause he is moving the stern around a bit. When I raise the rod tip again, it goes back down immediately and I point it farther down and hit the free spool lever so the line really starts to go out. Enough of this! I engage the spool and raise the rod tip to the heavens as fast and hard as I can, FISH ON!!!!
Round 1. The drag starts Riippp, rrrip, rip, ripping as the ‘butt tries to take the bait away from the pain in the mouth he is getting from it. Axman starts reeling his line in to keep clear and I hear him shout, “A double!” and then his drag starts to go out a little. Just as he goes to set the hook on the fish he remembers that he is using a circle hook; too late, he pulls the rig out of the fish’s mouth. “Damn!” I’ve got the hook set on mine and can hear Axman’s clicker going as he reels the line in so it hasn’t really registered yet that he pulled out and I’m thinking, “Oh this is going to be a big Chinese cluster drill, two of us trying wrestle big halibut into this 20’ boat at the same time.” I holler, “You’re still on, I hear the clicker,” but he tells me about the circle hook and I am a little bummed but fighting like hell to keep what feels like a short load of concrete on the end of my line coming to the top from 236 feet deep. I am really putting my back into it and am bracing against the gunnel to get more leverage. Every tenth pull or so I get too excited and the drag goes out just a bit when I try a little too hard. I hear Axman caution me, “Don’t pull too hard and lose that big ‘butt.” Same thing I remember telling Richard (my guest) when he was doing the pulling too hard on that 55 lb ‘butt last week. I’m pulling and cranking and pulling and cranking, and the thought occurs to me that at least I won’t have to pull this one from over 350’ like I did yesterday, this one is even bigger! Then the halibut sees the light of day.
Round 2. The drag starts screaming out, not just the little er, er, er rip of headshakes either. This ‘butt scared to death and makes a run like his ass is on fire! Axman is standing behind me laughing so hard he is going to end up with a hernia for sure. I am getting pissed ‘cause here I am, breaking my poor back for every foot of line I can put back on the reel and all this moron can do is laugh at me! It all becomes clear to me in a flash and I bust out laughing too because it is all I can hang on to this big bastard fish that is really kicking my ass at the moment. Finally he wears down and stops pulling out the line AND the boat through the water. Seems like forever that I was losing line so I start cranking it back in with a vengeance, muttering under my breath and swearing at it occasionally. John recovers from his laughing fit and starts clearing the deck getting ready for Round 3 with this fish. It seems to me I should be “seeing color” pretty soon because I am getting a little too tired and too sore from this fight that is lasting way longer than I think it should. Axman is ready with the harpoon and has the ball in a good spot as he watches me struggle with the halibut. He seems to be a lot more patient than me… I am starting to wear out… “Holy shit, Batman! Look at the size of that monster!”, and then I see the dark shape of the BIG halibut on the end of my line rise up. Now the fun begins. The fish sees the boat and makes a few moves to get away but I am on to his nonsense and don’t lose much line. I gain some more on it and start walking backwards to the other side of the boat in hopes of giving Axman a better angle to stick this goliath with the harpoon. “I can’t get him, the angle isn’t there!” he says. I head back to the close side of the boat taking in a little more line but lowering the rod tip just a bit so the fish lays flatter just under the surface of the water. “DON’T lift his head out!!” hollers Axman. “I’ve got him!” I reply loudly to ease his anxiety. He raises the spear and slams it into the side of the halibut, HARD!
Round 3. The ball goes flying out of the boat like Pele’ kicked it for a game winning goal and my drag goes screaming out, again. So now I’ve got this monster fish racing away from the boat dragging this big inflated ball behind it and I’m losing ground, again. The ball goes under the water and disappears… I see Axman out of the corner of my eye; his jaw is slack, just like mine as we wait, hoping the ball comes back to the surface soon. We look at each other, “Jesus!, did you see that?” as the ball pops up, back to the surface, and scoots across the top of the water, away from the boat. “Oh, oh…” I see my hooks are set into the rope where it holds the ball to the fish, not in his mouth where they are supposed to be. I reel the line back in slowly, getting the ball back to the side of the boat, when the fish decides it is too close to the boat again and rips away a few feet before he gets tired. S l o w l y I reel the ball back to the boat and Axman gets the hooks out of the rope and tries to hold onto the ball. In a way I am glad, I can’t really lose the fish now, it will be “we lost it.” I set the tackle out of the way.
Round 4. “Shit!” Axman can’t hold the ball and the fish makes a run for it. “Oh great!”, I think, “now we are going to have to go after it with the troller” as I sit in the stern and give the tiller a twist for some juice to get after that beast. “We’re going to have to bleed it”, muses Axman as he goes for his bait knife. I catch up to halibut and pull along side of it to grab the ball while John gets ready to stab it in the gills. He plunges the tiny little knife into gills and it doesn’t even phase the ‘butt. Then it rips the rope out of John’s hand. “Let go!”, he yells so I won’t lose a hand twisted in the rope when it comes tight. I had already let go long before the words were out of his mouth. I look at Axman and say, “You’re going to need a bigger knife.” He nods. We scramble around looking for a bigger knife. Got it. I settle back into the seat for the troller as we track it down, again. We pull up on it and I grab the ball and take up some rope. Axman grabs the rope close to the fish and stabs him deep with the big knife, a long slice this time. The ‘butt pulls again but we hang on. “We better boat this NOW”, says Axman as we both look at the gash that is starting to tear a bigger hole where the point of the harpoon is stuck through the side of this big flatty. I get the shark hook out of the box under the seat.
Round 5 “Come here…” I say to the halibut as I pull it closer to the boat with the rope as my partner stands ready with the shark hook. The fish acts as if it is worn out, but they can have large reserves of energy so we are still very careful. Axman has a little difficulty getting the shark hook in its mouth and has to manhandle it a bit while I am holding onto the rope attached to the harpoon point. Finally the hook is set. Axman looks at me and tells me I have to hit it, hard, while he pulls the head of the fish out of the water and puts it on the gunnel. “Ready?” he asks as he braces himself and I grab the club/bat to bludgeon the poor bastard halibut with. “Go!” He grunts and strains to hold the head on the gunnel without flipping the fish into the boat and not letting it slip all the way back into the water at the same time. WHACK! I clobber it with a one handed swing. “This ain’t gonna’ get it”, rattles in the back of my brain. So I grab the club with both hands and put my ass into it as I clobber the fish between the eyes 2, 3, 4,… a dozen times, panting and then grab the rope to help Axman slide it over the gunnel onto the deck. The damn fish still is flipping a little as we grab for its big, wide tail to wrap the rope around it a couple of times. 2, 3 wraps and a half hitch. Another time around and another half hitch, ta da! High fives and deep breaths. The adrenaline is still pumping as we stare at the bundled halibut lying on the deck. I look at my watch as an afterthought. It is 9:30, slightly more than 2 hours on the water. “Let’s get another!” We start to feel the crash from the lack of adrenaline and decide to fish the “Garbage Hole”.
We fished without lunch until about 3:00 and got a couple of sharks and a very small “chicken” sized halibut which we threw back in. When we got back to the dock, Joel spotted us coming in and came down to help Axman get the ‘butt out of the well, we put it in there just for kicks, and hung it up on the scale. It weighed in at 91 pounds; the biggest fish I ever caught.
Thanks Axman!
The moral is: Don’t screw with Axman and Batman!
