posted 05-12-2009 05:47 PM ET (US)        

[QUOTE]Monster halibut caught near Port Townsend

By Matt Schubert
Peninsula Daily News

It took almost 60 years, but Ray Frederick finally caught the fish of a lifetime.

The Silverdale resident has patrolled Puget Sound's saltwater since the early 1950s. Yet he'd never come across anything like what attacked the end of his line last Sunday just west of Point Wilson.

Then again, few people ever do.

Halibut measuring 81 inches in length and weighing more than 200 pounds aren't exactly common to Marine Area 6 (eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca).

In fact, it's been nearly three years since an angler reported catching something in the same ballpark (Sequim's Dan Schleve hooked a 78-inch flatty in May of 2006) around these parts.

"It was about as long as a guy's pickup box," said Glen Stovall of Swain's General Store in Port Angeles, who weighed the bruiser using a forklift.

And big enough to line up at linebacker for the Washington Huskies football team . . . especially these days.

Not bad for a 76-year-old retiree and his fishing partner Dick McDonald, 62, of Bremerton.

"We might be older," Frederick said, "but we got more experience."

They probably have a little more patience as well.

Third time a charm

Frederick and McDonald had already covered a couple of spots (Mid Channel and Foulweather Bluff) before heading farther west.

They were fishing in the Kitsap Poggie Club's annual halibut derby in search of a monster flatty to throw into the ladder.

Frederick, a former Poggie Club president, had found luck fishing a plateau west of Point Wilson in the past, so they decided to head that way about 10 a.m.

"I was about halfway between Point Wilson and Protection Island in about 95 feet of water," Frederick said. "There's a big deep valley in there [east of Protection Island], and then it comes back up when you get further east and it comes into a plateau.

"When we stopped there, about 10 minutes into it another boat landed a 50-pounder. About 20 minutes later, I landed the big one."

There was little doubting its size from the start.

"It made some powerful runs while it was still down close to the bottom, and I hadn't experienced that with halibut before," Frederick said.

"It got within 30 feet of the surface and it just sort of hung there. It was just like trying to reel in a big heavy weight."

The two adversaries dueled for approximately 30 minutes in Frederick's estimation.

After he got its monstrous head to the surface, McDonald speared it, put a line through its mouth and they lifted it into the boat.

No Glock 9 or tow job with these two.

Of course, as Frederick admitted, "If I would have known it was over 200 pounds, I probably wouldn't have tried to get it in the boat."

Not surprisingly, the Poggie Derby folks staked out at John Wayne Marina were ill-equipped to deal with it.

So without a scale on hand that could accurately weigh a fish so mammoth, they headed to Swain's General Store. The official weight, according to Stovall: 223 pounds.

That's about a second-grader shy of the state record (288 pounds).

And to state the obvious, it was big enough to win the Poggie Derby's $440 first prize.

posted 05-12-2009 06:24 PM ET (US)            

Learning to fish for halibut is next on my list.

posted 05-12-2009 09:43 PM ET (US)            

While stationed in Kodiak I had a 1982 17' Montauk, caught numerous 100+ pounders out of her including a 160 pounder. That was fun.

The next weekend (back in 1991 or so) my wife pulled in two 86-pounders in 6 minutes.

Halibut fishing in Kodiak was great. Never fished deeper than 100', never stayed longer than 60-minutes in one spot, and never traveled over 12-miles.