I have a quick question...
I have always used a spreader bar when fishing for halibut on my boat...
When i was at Sport Co. this weekend i noticed the tuna-cord set up.... So i pick a few up...
What do you guys think of the tuna cord set-up thingy... it seems like its just going to get into a big tangle.. isnt the idea of a spreader bar to not get tangled?
Maybe I'm missing something.
Gearing up for Halibut
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Forum Post Guidelines: This Forum is rated “Family Friendly”. Civil discussions are encouraged and welcomed. Name calling, negative, harassing, or threatening comments will be removed and may result in suspension or IP Ban without notice. Please refer to the Terms of Service and Forum Guidelines post for more information. Thank you
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Ive never tried one because I figured it would tangle worse than a spreader - and spreaders do tangle if you are not careful.
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
I think the tuna cord/sliding weight setup is better if you're anchored and the current will help keep the gear from tangling on its way down. When anchored the weight can be left on the bottom which is where the sliding weight setup is made to work. When drifting I can't see the tuna cord setup offering any benefit and might be more of a pain. Since we don't anchor we always use spreader bars.
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
We drift too. Anchoring in deep water is waaaaaaay too much work 
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SeatoSummit88
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Re: Gearing up for Halibut
If you have a few people on the boat; you can have one person keeping it in gear, and hover over the spot. On the charter boats we use the tuna cord slider bar. It works fine. When you have a lot of people lined up next to each other and everyone drops at different speeds and times; it can cause tangles. It's best to not rush the let down, and let the weight catch up to how deep you are. I typically stop the line about every 30 seconds and make sure it comes tight..it results in putting the bait right under the boat and for less tangles later.
Like what Larry3215 said; Anchoring in deep water is a lot of work! ^^^
Everyone has a favorite bait/rig. I think whole rainbow trout kill for halibut. a little smelly jelly on them.. perfect!
We also use marinated lingcod bellies, whole squid and big mackerel (very oiley).
Like what Larry3215 said; Anchoring in deep water is a lot of work! ^^^
Everyone has a favorite bait/rig. I think whole rainbow trout kill for halibut. a little smelly jelly on them.. perfect!
We also use marinated lingcod bellies, whole squid and big mackerel (very oiley).
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Let's_Go_Fishing!
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Re: Gearing up for Halibut
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Last edited by Let's_Go_Fishing! on Wed May 25, 2016 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Our planes to go out this week for hali are not working out. We wanted to go out Thursday and Fri but the weather looks really nasty for winds and wind waves. The weekend might be fishable - if the winds hold off - but then we would be fighting the crowds....
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Sorry man! I drew the unlucky card for our halibut trip this season too. We had plans to go out the 14th and 15th. Loading our gear Thursday night we were testing the equipment and found the boat wouldn't start. Spent all day Friday diagnosing, getting parts, and repairing the issue (electronic ignition decided to quit). Of course Friday was a gorgeous day. Saturday we made it half way out to Eastern Bank before the weather turned us back. Ended up not halibut fishing and dropped shrimp pots in Rosario Straight....7 hours of getting tossed around and all we ended up with was a total of 34 shrimp between three of us.Larry3215 wrote:Our planes to go out this week for hali are not working out. We wanted to go out Thursday and Fri but the weather looks really nasty for winds and wind waves. The weekend might be fishable - if the winds hold off - but then we would be fighting the crowds....
A disappointing weekend. That was my one shot this season, so will have to wait till next year to try again.
![[sad]](./images/smilies/msp_sad.gif "Sad"){kind=small}
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
That sucks! At least we didnt have to buy $$ parts to NOT go fishing!
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
^%$#@*&*^%%! weather report keeps getting worse and worse! Oh well, we are heading out to PA in the early predawn come hell or hi winds!
Maybe the weather guru dudes and dudettes got it wrong? One can always hope.....
On the plus side, anyone with a lick of sense will stay home tomorrow quaking in their waders after reading the forecast. Its possible we may get through the line at the ramp and into the water by noon! Its even remotely possible we could find a parking place for the trailer within 5 miles of the marina.....
Maybe the weather guru dudes and dudettes got it wrong? One can always hope.....
On the plus side, anyone with a lick of sense will stay home tomorrow quaking in their waders after reading the forecast. Its possible we may get through the line at the ramp and into the water by noon! Its even remotely possible we could find a parking place for the trailer within 5 miles of the marina.....
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Good luck!
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Went out yesterday and it was worse and better than I expected.
The weather was much better than predicted as far as wind. Just light winds until late in the day and even then it wasnt all that bad. Over all the seas were not bad. Certainly nothing close to small craft warnings, so the weather dudes and dudettes got that part wrong - for Port Angeles at least.
Turned out no one had a lick of sense yesterday or they were like me and decided to try it despite the predictions. There were at least a zillion boats out there! Driving through PA, there were exactly ZERO legal parking places for boats anywhere in town within at least a mile of the launches. Id also guess 99.99% of the illegal spots were also filled with trailers. I bet the city made a killing on parking tickets yesterday!
We didnt get there until almost 730 which was good in one way. There was no long line at the Ediz hook ramp. Just one boat ahead of us and plenty of room on the ramps for both of us. The downside was we had to park at least a 1/4 mile down the road from the ramp. Lots of illegal parking on Ediz too - in the bike lanes and right in front of all the No Parking signs
So we finally get out on the water and there are boats every where we can see. Since the water was nice and smooth, we decided to try out a ways first, so we headed out to 31-36 first. Thats about 5 or 6 miles north and slightly east of the hook.
The combination of winds and tides yesterday was near perfect. It made for slow easy drifts so you didnt need a ton of weight to stay down on the bottom. We got by with maybe 16oz weights most of the day for depths up to 320 feet or so.
Anyway, we tried 31-36, the Rock Pile, around the Can bouy, outside the hook, out from the paper mill, off Freshwater Bay and several places in the Green Point Area.
Zip, zero, nada, nothing. The closest we got to catching anything was one herring had the tail nibbled off by something with very small teeth.
I did see quite a few things on the sounder that looked like salmon and lots of nice bait balls. Of course, salmon is closed....
We gave up about 4:30 when the wind started to pick up and just beat the rush back to the ramp, so that was good.
Talked to the fish checker and he said lots of limits for those who got out early (not us) and lots of them were in the Green Point area. Slooooow later in the day or for sleepy heads like us.
We talked to several other bats on the water and at the ramp after we docked and up on the road while we were packing up. No one we talked to got a single bite. We did see one guy packing a small butt into an ice chest. It was maybe 24" long and 15# at most. Still made us jealous!
We had fun though.
One note - we heard LOTS of chatter on the VHF about boat disasters and emergency calls. More than one capsized boat and people in the water from all around the sound and coast.
We had a close call ourselves late in the day. We were in the Green Point area when a huge container ship came in from the east at hi speed towards PA throwing a monster wake. He had to blow his horn several times to get other idiot boats to move out of his way. He passed maybe a mile from us but I could see he was throwing a huge wake that was breaking badly as it got closer to us. The water was already getting lumpy so it wasnt realy obvious from a distance.
We had to pull up gear and turn into it when it got close. It was at least 6 ft hi and breaking. It was one heck of a ride going over that thing. Everything loose on the boat got tossed around and we got blue water over the bow. If it had caught us sideways we would have been upside down in an instant.
Right after we passed over it, I turned to look at a couple of small boats behind us that the wake was heading towards. They were also drifting sideways to its path and didnt look like they were ready for it, so I blew my horn and we started to get ready to assist. Luckily they were both able to get headed into it before it got there.
Keep your eyes open out there guys and be safe
The weather was much better than predicted as far as wind. Just light winds until late in the day and even then it wasnt all that bad. Over all the seas were not bad. Certainly nothing close to small craft warnings, so the weather dudes and dudettes got that part wrong - for Port Angeles at least.
Turned out no one had a lick of sense yesterday or they were like me and decided to try it despite the predictions. There were at least a zillion boats out there! Driving through PA, there were exactly ZERO legal parking places for boats anywhere in town within at least a mile of the launches. Id also guess 99.99% of the illegal spots were also filled with trailers. I bet the city made a killing on parking tickets yesterday!
We didnt get there until almost 730 which was good in one way. There was no long line at the Ediz hook ramp. Just one boat ahead of us and plenty of room on the ramps for both of us. The downside was we had to park at least a 1/4 mile down the road from the ramp. Lots of illegal parking on Ediz too - in the bike lanes and right in front of all the No Parking signs
So we finally get out on the water and there are boats every where we can see. Since the water was nice and smooth, we decided to try out a ways first, so we headed out to 31-36 first. Thats about 5 or 6 miles north and slightly east of the hook.
The combination of winds and tides yesterday was near perfect. It made for slow easy drifts so you didnt need a ton of weight to stay down on the bottom. We got by with maybe 16oz weights most of the day for depths up to 320 feet or so.
Anyway, we tried 31-36, the Rock Pile, around the Can bouy, outside the hook, out from the paper mill, off Freshwater Bay and several places in the Green Point Area.
Zip, zero, nada, nothing. The closest we got to catching anything was one herring had the tail nibbled off by something with very small teeth.
I did see quite a few things on the sounder that looked like salmon and lots of nice bait balls. Of course, salmon is closed....
We gave up about 4:30 when the wind started to pick up and just beat the rush back to the ramp, so that was good.
Talked to the fish checker and he said lots of limits for those who got out early (not us) and lots of them were in the Green Point area. Slooooow later in the day or for sleepy heads like us.
We talked to several other bats on the water and at the ramp after we docked and up on the road while we were packing up. No one we talked to got a single bite. We did see one guy packing a small butt into an ice chest. It was maybe 24" long and 15# at most. Still made us jealous!
We had fun though.
One note - we heard LOTS of chatter on the VHF about boat disasters and emergency calls. More than one capsized boat and people in the water from all around the sound and coast.
We had a close call ourselves late in the day. We were in the Green Point area when a huge container ship came in from the east at hi speed towards PA throwing a monster wake. He had to blow his horn several times to get other idiot boats to move out of his way. He passed maybe a mile from us but I could see he was throwing a huge wake that was breaking badly as it got closer to us. The water was already getting lumpy so it wasnt realy obvious from a distance.
We had to pull up gear and turn into it when it got close. It was at least 6 ft hi and breaking. It was one heck of a ride going over that thing. Everything loose on the boat got tossed around and we got blue water over the bow. If it had caught us sideways we would have been upside down in an instant.
Right after we passed over it, I turned to look at a couple of small boats behind us that the wake was heading towards. They were also drifting sideways to its path and didnt look like they were ready for it, so I blew my horn and we started to get ready to assist. Luckily they were both able to get headed into it before it got there.
Keep your eyes open out there guys and be safe
Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Hey Larry,
That sounds like quite the adventure. Thanks for the great write up. Glad the weather cooperated, but sorry it was a blank. That's frustrating for sure. The amount of boats and emergency reports out there doesn't surprise me. Accidents do happen, but with the extremely limited season we get for these fish, I think more people are taking chances because they feel that's their only opportunity. Of course there are those that make poor choices regularly, but it just drives those who normally wouldn't to take risks. Those shipping lanes can be dangerous for the exact reason you wrote about. You have to be on your guard all the time. Like you indicated, the wakes can travel for a long ways. Have been hit by quite a few rogue waves in the Straight and the Sound that did not have a visible cause, but am sure we're generated by a previously passing ship.
Again, sorry your trip was a bust. As the years go by, I'm getting less optimistic that we'll ever put one in the boat in Washington waters between the ever shrinking and pushed back season, the unpredictable weather, and the apparently decreasing number of halibut in the Eastern Straight. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong in coming years as I'd really like to catch one of these babies some day. Who knows, maybe next year.
Thanks again for the details.
Tight lines.
That sounds like quite the adventure. Thanks for the great write up. Glad the weather cooperated, but sorry it was a blank. That's frustrating for sure. The amount of boats and emergency reports out there doesn't surprise me. Accidents do happen, but with the extremely limited season we get for these fish, I think more people are taking chances because they feel that's their only opportunity. Of course there are those that make poor choices regularly, but it just drives those who normally wouldn't to take risks. Those shipping lanes can be dangerous for the exact reason you wrote about. You have to be on your guard all the time. Like you indicated, the wakes can travel for a long ways. Have been hit by quite a few rogue waves in the Straight and the Sound that did not have a visible cause, but am sure we're generated by a previously passing ship.
Again, sorry your trip was a bust. As the years go by, I'm getting less optimistic that we'll ever put one in the boat in Washington waters between the ever shrinking and pushed back season, the unpredictable weather, and the apparently decreasing number of halibut in the Eastern Straight. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong in coming years as I'd really like to catch one of these babies some day. Who knows, maybe next year.
Thanks again for the details.
Tight lines.
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Let's_Go_Fishing!
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Re: Gearing up for Halibut
Going out on the holidays is similar to hitting the lakes opening weekend. Too many drunks, show offs, inexperienced or disrespectful boaters or fishermen out there. The same applies to boat ramps and roadways on holidays. Never is it worth the mishaps or risk. It can wait. Tight lines 