Big Fish

It was a nice day today. The temperature was moderate, in the eighties. There was a rain front that was coming through from the west and northwest. We didn't get any rain, but the breeze that the front brought with it was delightful. It never got too hot while we worked in the yard and on the back of the house.

I am watching a show in which they are exploring various natural phenomena around the world. I was just watching two guys kayaking off the coast of western Canada. They were watching two glaciers lose their ice. The glaciers were magnificent and the sound of the ice falling of the edge of the glaciers was powerful like artillery in the distance. It reminded me of trips with my dad to Alaska to fish. The terrain was so unusual, so different from the piedmont of Central Georgia. Southeastern Alaska is a large archipelago of islands. Each island is a tree covered mountain island, sitting in the cold, blue waters of Alaska. Every so often, you see bald eagles nesting in the trees on the islands.

The first time we went up there, Dad, Frank and me, we saw the aurora borealis in the northern skiy. It looked like a curtain of colors waving in the breeze. It was something I had seen in science books, but never in person. It was amazing and Dad got to see if for the first time, too, even though he had been going up there for a number of years.

The last trip we made to Alaska, we saw a number of whales, throwing their large bodies up into the air from the ocean below. I couldn't help it; it reminded me of the Pacific Life commercials on television. We saw a lot of whales that year. One morning, when we were almost outside of the islands in the open ocean, we came across a man in a long kayak, fishing. All of a sudden, we noticed a whale beside his kayak, the whale being about twice the size of his kayak. Fortunately, the whale was gentle in his passage along the kayak, and passed off away without any damage to his kayak.

The last day in Alaska, we fished for salmon for several hours, then went to a new spot to fish for halibut. Unlike other days, the spot was inside the barrier islands and the water was relatively calm. Our guide passed out the halibut rods, which are short stout rods, which carry thick line and a stainless steel, almost circular hook. The guide baited our hook with the lungs of some of the salmon we had caught earlier in the day.

Halibut fishing feels less skillful than salmon fishing. When you fish for salmon, you work the line up and down steadily, trying to catch the eye of a salmon. You have to be careful and watchful to ensure that your line is running smoothly in order to make sure the bait is running clear and not tangling. If you can do that, you might catch the eye of a salmon. If you are really lucky, you might catch a large school of salmon, and hook multiple salmon as the fisherman throw their baited hooks down one after the other.

I remember the first day we were fishing for salmon. We had almost caught our limit when we ran into a school of salmon. Suddenly, everyone on the boat got a bite and the guide was hustling to get from fisherman to fisherman in order to take the salmon off one hook, re-bait the hook and toss it back into the water. By the time we were through, we all had caught salmon and we had our limit in a matter of minutes. It was wild and rewarding.

But halibut fishing is like fishing for catfish. You drop your line down into the cold water, deeper and deeper, until you hit the bottom around three hundred fifty feet down. At that depth, you let the bait sit a few feet off the bottom to try to catch the attention of a big halibut.

A halibut is like a flounder, a big flat fish with its eyes on the top of its body. But a halibut is much bigger, getting up to three hundred pounds or more. On the day we were fishing for halibut, Frank and Kevin and I dropped our lines and waited. The boat bobbed on the water and we strained to feel for a bite.

Suddenly, I felt a deep tug on my line. I turned to the guide and told him I thought I had one. He ordered me to pull up on the rod and the halibut quickly jerked the bait back. The guide informed me that I did, indeed, have a halibut on the line.

Meanwhile, Frank got a tug on his line and began to pull his fish up off the bottom. As I slowly reeled the line in from the bottom, Frank was also reeling his fish to the surface. After about twenty minutes, Frank pulled his to the surface. I jerked my head back to look at Frank and, as I reeled, I watched the guide take a gaff and bop the fish on the end where his brains were located. After the thwack on the fish's head, the halibut jerked his mighty grey head from side to side and threw the hook out of its mouth. Frank's line went slack and the guide reached for another salmon lung to re-bait his hook.

I turned back to my struggle, and watched the orange line come up and up from the bottom. I expected to see a fish sometime, but it seemed like all I was seeing was more line coming up from the bottom. Meanwhile, Frank posited the opinion that I would lose my too, pretty soon.

Finally, a large grey object came to view in the water. The size was amazing. Much larger than anything I had brought up before. As it came closer to the boat, it continued to grow in size and despite its grey, fat body, was about as pretty as I had seen. After a few more minutes, I pulled the body up to the surface and the guide reared back and came down hard on the head of the halibut. The body of the halibut went slack and the guide reached for a rope to run through the gills of the fish.

Securing the fish, the guide pulled heavily and brought the fish over the gunnels and plopped him onto the deck of the boat. It took up the entire back of the boat. Like a cowboy, he took the rope and tied it around the tail of the halibut. With the big fish secured, the guide looked at me and asked if I wanted to try again. As my brother patted me on the shoulder, I passed the rod over to the guide who put another salmon lung on the circular hook.

I dropped the hook into the water and began to loose the line down to the bottom. I tried to fish, but my attention was drawn to the big fish in the back of the boat. The guide finally suggested that we had had enough luck for the day and we headed back to the lodge. Later, when we made the dock at the lodge, the guide pulled the fish onto the dock and weighed it: 104 pounds. Not too big for a halibut, but the biggest one caught that trip. It won me $120.00 dollars in a pool the fishermen had that trip. The picture of me and the halibut, hanging from the scale, my red Pendleton shirt contrasting with the large grey fish, sits on the mantle over the fireplace in my office. Just yesterday afternoon, someone visiting stepped over to take a look. Even three years after the trip, it could puff my chest up a bit from the accomplishment.