Fishing Report: Halibut fishing out of Seward

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - It was a combination of beautiful weather and big fish in this week’s fishing report as Off the Dock Charters took Sports Director Patrick Enslow aboard the Wild Thing to fish for halibut off Montague Island.

On the water by 6 a.m., it was a three-hour cruise toward Montague Island where the group anchored down, and Captain Garret Whitley expected the halibut to start biting within an hour using salmon carcasses and herring as bait.

It’s a two-fish bag limit for halibut, with one fish of any size and a second equal to or less than 32 inches. The priority early in the trip was to find big halibut. True to his word, Whitley had the boat on big fish within an hour of anchoring down. Fairbanks resident David Hundley was the first person to land a fish on the boat and set the tone for the rest of the trip.

Shortly after Hundley caught his halibut, Enslow got one on the line after jigging for 15 minutes and was able to get it in the boat after a thirty-minute fight. The group spent the majority of the trip making sure everyone on the boat caught a halibut over 32 inches. Once that was accomplished, the action quickly moved on to fishing for rockfish.

Spending a full day on the water, the group was rewarded with a big day on the scale as Hundley’s fish weighed over 100 pounds.

Copyright 2021 KTUU. All rights reserved.