Doing A Jig For Halibut

Well actually jigging. Jigging is a fishing technique where you drop a weighted fishing line to the ocean bottom, lifting and thumping on the bottom over and over. After about 20 minutes or so bottom feeding Halibut will smell the bait and come looking.

The thing is, Halibut aren’t the only fish that will take the bait in these conditions, as we saw the other day. In the 114 foot water about 12 km from Prince Rupert, we caught three Pacific Grey Cod, a Dogfish and one Halibut.

The Pacific Grey Cod are also called True Cod and apparently the best choice fish for Fish and Chips. This one didn’t even get to swallow the bait.

A look through the gills.

Oh no, a Dogfish. Apparently these guys are too easy to catch and it can become tiresome to let them go again and again. Fortunately we only caught one which is enough to get a good look at these small sharks.

I’ll never tire of how interesting Halibut are to look at. With their flattened, sideways face and light under body.

We stopped at a cleaning station before heading home. Cleaning the fish can be a bit gruesome at first but it’s also an excellent way to learn a bit more about fish anatomy. You can click on the picture to see some of the anatomy pointed out on the photo.

We had many interested visitors who show up whenever they see a boat at the cleaning station. Seagulls flying straight at us to have a closer look, ravens, maybe fourteen eagles sitting in the trees or on building near by and occasionally flying past and harbour seals popping up out of the water.

Another fisherman using the cleaning station offered to give us a little show, slapping the carcass of one of our now cleaned fish for the harbour seal to come and take from his hand. You can click on the picture to see the next three pictures I took of this moment.