British Columbia Salmon and Halibut Fishing with IWL

You've heard the expression, "A workman never blames his tools"? In this case, I'll disobey that axiom. A lot. Two that can't be blamed are customers George and Denis Lieutard, father and son. These two are confirmed hali fishermen, which means they've access to large freezers. This story began one weekday when they'd already completed three-quarters of their quota with halis of 50, 65 and 70 pounds. We were at one of my favourite spots on Constance Bank, six nautical miles south of Victoria.

While we waited for the fourth halibut to invite itself aboard (optimists or what),   George and I were talking about a nifty hali-jig he'd fashioned from space age materials--a rubber glove. At that point the rod holder and rod, that is just visible under George's right elbow, the whole works went into the drink! I thought Denis might have been paying attention, so I asked if he'd noticed what the rod did when it fell into the water. "Did it flutter down, or did it move like an arrow through the water?" Denis answered it was moving like an arrow at a good clip through the water. Oh damn.

Meanwhile, George had hooked a nice hali on the opposite quarter of the boat. Denis started to bring up the line next to it in order to clear out the side for his dad. Right away, Denis began saying he could feel a hali on his line, but because I know everything (?) I answered, "You've just hooked the same halibut as your dad. Keep going. It'll be easier to reel in as a team." I was wrong, sorta.

Denis said he was almost up to the boat with his line, and he reached into the water and picked up the rod that'd just fallen a few hundred feet to the bottom. A very nice surprise. Once he was handling this soggy rod he said, "There seems to be a fish here, a pretty large one at that." After a bit more of a tussle, Denis pulled a 135 pounder (at least) near the side of the boat. With a flying gaff in its mouth, this monster headed down to the end of a 3/8 inch polypropylene line. The halibut pulled the boat's gunwhale down a good half foot, but while we were congratulating each other, the big hali swam up the line toward the boat, then turned and hit the end of the 50 foot line with a vengeance! The polypropylene broke. Goodbye 135 pounder. But George still had one on his line. We landed George's 85 pound halibut and readied the filleting knives for a lot of work on the shore.

The lesson here is to put 1000 pound gold braid line on all flying gaffs and harpoons.

While still on the tool topic, (Tim) there was the day we were breaking in the boat at the start of the halibut season. We'd located the secret spot in the midst of the fog, baited up, and realized there were no leads in the boat. We use one to two pound lead weights to get the baits down to the halibut depths. I had tools in the boat from working on shore, so Ben selected a vice-grip plier, I chose a 13 inch crescent wrench and Doc Mansfield chose a hammer. The rig weighted with the hammer caught a 65 pounder. My advice: don't bother with crescents or vice-grips. Bring a sack of hammers.

Paul Paquin