Halibut Catch & Cook - Catching Halibut with Light Tackle (+1,000,000 flounders!)

Guys here come here bud. Jacob I love you. I love fish. I'll see ya. Bye. Let's call that a day. It's a bunch of beluga whales out in the inland. Alright guys we're here in Homer, Alaska and me and my brother and my nephew here we're gonna be doing some serious fishing. Alright Luke here at the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel and we're going fishing for two days. So yeah this whole video is kind of a spur of the moment thing. We just got finished doing the longest road trip in the United States. Driving from Key West, Florida to Dead Horse, Alaska. We finished up that video. Drove back to Anchorage. We're ready to fly out. And the whole family tested positive for COVID. Well I mean I got COVID and then I gave it to the whole family. And now I'm out of quarantine and they're not so we are going fishing. So my kids are exiled from the public school system for a good two and a half weeks. And my poor wife is stuck inside with them and I'm going fishing. And we're gonna go cook up a whole bunch of awesome fish. If we can't catch something we just don't know what we're doing. We don't know what we're doing. We're pulling out of the Homer Harbor and this is the most stressful part of the whole process. Reminds me of the high school parking lot. Paranoid I'm gonna hit something. Here's the Coast Guard ship. This is the worst spot. Yeah! Well my brother here is actually here on a work trip. So we're gonna drop him off back at the dock around lunchtime. So we're not gonna venture out too far this morning. Plus we have no idea what we're doing. So no point in running out far when you don't know where you're going. Okay we're on a steep shelf that goes from about 100 feet down to 400 feet. And we got a little ridge that we're gonna drift over the top of. So that's that's what I'm gonna try. We're gonna see what happens. We're gonna throw a bunch of dead fish down here and see if something eats it. Put a little trolling herring head on top on the end of a sushi spoon. I'm gonna drop this down. There's a fish on it. You get tired. No it's a little flounder. What is it? Little baby. There we go. Oh look at all the sea lice on him. He is loaded. First fish of the day. Today is Ransom's birthday. Yes. I mean halibut fishing is the same as catfishing basically. Just bigger and deeper. So we got these high low rigs. I mean I've caught a million catfish on these things. And this is just a bigger halibut version. I got a three pound lead and I've got these two droppers. Kind of like a high low rig. We're gonna put big old herring on these. So we're gonna have the smaller rods with jigging action going on at the back of the boat. And then one of these big boys is right underneath the boat. Oh a little halibut. Yeah look at that little guy. Little baby halibut. Alright. There he goes. What you got? Oh you got a little kelp greeley. Yeah a little kelp greeley. Oh no a little sculpin. There you go a little sculpin. Our third species of fish already. There we go. Well this is a nice little spot. We kind of get our confidence boosted up. But we want some real halibut. Not these little dinky ones. So we're gonna keep moving around. See if we can't find something better. I'm just cruising around looking for rock pile or just anything that is interesting. Oh see look at that. There's something going on right there. Oh look at that big old sea otter right there. Just chilling. That's a good sign. And these guys are still going waiting for the bottom. So we're at 228 feet. We got a bigger jig head. This is a serious fish here. What you do is you put your thumb up. You're like bam bam. Or I uh. You got a little. We had a nice little drift here but not a lot is going on. So we're gonna pull up and try another spot. Maybe 10 feet and so. Alright got another spot with some marks down there. We're gonna see if there's any fish. Not huge but it feels like something. Little baby halibut. You can see our jigs on the bottom. You can see that that's a fish right there that came up and tried to smack it. Got some chew marks on there Dan. He just missed the hook. What do you got? What do you got? Oh little pollock yeah. Great little fish and chips there. Nice catch Dan. A snagged sculpin. Good. Oh ho ho. That is a flounder. Cause he's got that rough skin. Great. Nice flounder. Little kelp greeling. Well we caught a few things here and there but it's time for Dan to go to his meeting so we're gonna drop him back at the harbor and me and Ransom are gonna go try to find some big halibut. Alright Dan enjoy working. Alright let's go catch a 100 pound halibut. But now that we've got the dead weight gone we're gonna go out a little bit further and see if we can't catch some more serious size halibut. We're gonna go to the mouth of the bay. There's a sea otter. Those sea otters aren't little they're like 6 feet long or more. You see right here we got a trough where it gets deep down here. So this is deeper this is shallower. I'm just gonna kind of scoot all around here and see if we can't find something. Alright birthday boy you ready to try this out? Yeah. Alright let's just see what's happening. We have no clue what we're doing. Wanna use this one? I do. Oh there we go another tiny guy. I mean we're catching little dinkers like nobody's business. We just need to get the bigger boys. Just hit something big. That's more of what we're looking for. Look at that color buddy. That's huge. Oh look at that. What is that? Oh that's a skate. Oh I thought we had a halibut on. Check it out it's a skate but this is a baby one. They get six feet wide here in Alaska. This is just a little tiny guy. I hear you can eat them but you know I just don't know what I would do with it. We caught something big. That one's nice. I think this might be the smallest one today. Ransoms might be even smaller. Look at that. A lot of little dinks in one skate but that's not what we're looking for. Let's go try another spot see what we can find. A couple big old sea otters just sitting right there. One, two, three. Alright I'm going to switch and try a different lure here and see if that works. Ransoms got something serious. This doesn't look like a little flounder. Yeah rods bending. Oh I can see big color. Get him closer. Oh that's a little chicken halibut but it's a eater. Shall we keep him? That was a little one but we were really excited to have it. Well we saw our best halibut on this drift but I'm going to keep going. I think we can find an even better spot. Alright let's try another spot. Look how tiny that is. Oh that's the record for the smallest right there. We're going to try another spot. Oh jellyfish. A whale just came out of the water. A humpback whale right there. A little baby halibut. That might be one of the smallest halibut ever but there we go that was a halibut. Well we didn't exactly slaughter the fish today but we caught a ton of those little flounders. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get on the halibut but we're just going to go and clean up the boat and get it all organized and ready for tonight and tomorrow we're going to give it another go. Well good morning it's another beautiful day here in the Holbrook Small Boat Harbor. This time we're going to do it. I think we learned some valuable lessons yesterday. Time to cast us off Dan. So yesterday we watched a lot of boats leave the harbor and none of them were fishing anywhere near us so that tells me that probably we need to go a little further out because that's what everyone else is doing. So we got a bit more fuel today we're going to go out to the mouth of the bay to a place called the Compass Rose because on all of the maps where they put the Compass Rose is a good fishing spot. So if you get a map of Kachemak Bay where they put the little north south thing that's where you want to go. Big area though I mean it's not like it's a little spot it's many square miles. We've got to figure out where to fish in the Compass Rose but that seems to be where a lot of people are going and that's where we're going to go to. Alright guys we're in the Compass Rose let's cruise around a little bit until we see something good on the fish finder. We don't know what we're doing so we're going to drop here and see what happens. After a day on the boat. Sure enough a little flounder here. Kind of like yesterday we're in a pile of flounder Ransom's got another one over there. Yo look at that little guy. You catch these little guys and you spend so much time messing with them that you don't get a chance to catch a big one. That's actually a baby halibut he's got smooth skin and a little bit more elongated. There you go they're spunkier too. That's a flounder though right? Sure looks like it yeah. That's a flounder. Oh yeah I guess. Oh look at that. Yeah it's a little baby halibut. That's something. Dan we got a real fish. It's a skate. Oh crap we lost the rod. Son of a gun. I'm just going to pop him off right here. Yeah that's a good size one. Oh that's huge. All of a sudden Ransom goes hey I got something I got him snagged on the rod. He pulls it out of the ocean. I think that's the catch of the day. That was the catch of the day. That's the MVP play there Ransom. We got the rod back. Oh there you go little halibut. That's a decent fish right there. Awesome. That's a halibut. Oh did he pop off? Oh he popped off. That was definitely a halibut. You can feel him though. You can feel that pumping. Oh there we go just got hooked up again. That's a flounder. That's a flounder but that's a different. It's a towel hook. That's why it was a nice flounder. It's a rough skin. I mean he's really rough and you see how he's kind of round instead of triangular. Look at that. That's a beautiful fish. All right Dan what you got? Oh he got off. I never saw it. What do you got Dan? I got a halibut. Yeah I mean that's. It's. It's edible. I think we might want to seriously consider that one. I think we keep it. It's almost noon. There's a lot of meat on halibut. So I mean that's a meal. Hello. I think I just broke the record for the smallest whatever I can see through this one. Was he trying to eat my lure or mate with it or become buddies or. Flounder. It's a respectable size flounder. Oh there you go. There's something proper on that. It's a flounder. I can see the stripes on the fins. There we go another big flounder but that's a flounder. Nice something. It's a flounder. Ta da. That's a little halibut. Look at that. You're a flounder slayer. Okay. Oh. It's got some. Yeah that feels like a halibut. That feels like a real halibut. Oh that's a halibut. Get the gap. I'm working on it. Get the. Oh. There's an actual keeper halibut. Let's do that. Yep. Oh. Never been so excited for a little halibut. What a beautiful beautiful halibut. They're so meaty. This is my first halibut I've ever caught on a do-it-myself charter. Got something here. A halibut. Oh yeah. I mean I think at this point in the game we should keep that. Yep let's do it. Oh dad's got one. I think we found our chicken halibut farm. Yeah it is a good size flounder. Oh Dan just got tagged. There we go. I mean these are really fun on that light tackle aren't they? These are such tiny halibut. I mean if you go on a charter these are like the smallest ones you'll see all day. Nice little halibut. That would be awesome. Man we really are catching these halibut on light tackle. This is a little Akuma Azores. I mean this is a really great jigging rod for rockfish and cod and that sort of thing. But it is definitely on the light side for halibut. Got a good one Ransom? I think so. This is the most awkward technique I've ever seen. Okay Luke. It's really heavy. This is the heaviest one I've lifted up yet. Grrrr. Oh my gosh this is so hard. Grrrr. Holy crap it's a huge halibut. Oh. Yes you did. Oh your pants. That's what you say. Holy crap. Ransom. High five man. Big fish of the day. Check it out. I got those ripped jeans that the kids think are so cool nowadays. Grrrr. Yeah. I caught a good halibut. Oh. That one got all tangled up in all sorts of stuff. Oh. Well that's it. Six halibut. Some of them are embarrassingly small but we were desperate. Okay. There we go. We can be seen in public with those. We caught our six halibut. There's a very small halibut in that cooler. That's alright. We got them and they're going to taste fabulous. The smaller ones taste better so these are going to taste really, really good. Oh. I'm actually the best fisherman. Headed out to go fishing for rockfish and something's wrong with the engine. Can't get it to rev up all the way and so we can only do about 10 miles per hour. So we're going to just kind of head back. Well the engine we kept croaking out when I put it in neutral and it had all problems but we made it back to shore and we're alive and we didn't break anything. Alright. Let's pull them out. Look at. That's so tiny. There's. I think that's my slightly less tiny one. What's the difference between you two? That's. That's a. Oh look. It's a baby. It's a mommy. Okay. Put your. Put your other hand in there. A little. Okay. One, two, three. Off you go. There you go. There's big and little. One, two, three. Can you hold it up any higher? Well guys you want to see what halibut's been eating? Here's the stomach. Oh crabs. Look at all these crabs he's eating. Just full of them. Good job. That one's actually big. So this is what was in the stomach of this halibut. Little. A little baby halibut. You can see there's the eyes. Get a lot of meat off a halibut. Yeah that's. That's a lot of meat. Oh you got a little tapeworm huh? Yeah. Look at that there. Yeah that's alright. Just cook it fully. That's more meat. We got the boat cleaned and the key returned. We got to drive four hours back to Anchorage and we're going to cook up some halibut. I'm in the mood for some fish tacos. That sound good? Yeah. Well guys we're back here in Anchorage and I've got about four hours of sleep under my belt. But we're going to make halibut tacos. So buckle up. It's going to be tasty. Fire alarm. Alrighty. Have a seat baby. I got a call from. Avocado. Pico de gallo. That looks amazing Luke. I really hope I can taste this. Oh that's good. Now unfortunately Becca and Melody are both recovering from COVID. So their sense of smell and taste is a little off. But maybe that's a good thing with my cooking. You like it? I'm still trying to decide if I can taste anything. Hey Jacob do you like it? Yeah. You like it Melody? Oh yeah. Can you taste it? I can actually taste it. That's good. Well guys that was some delicious halibut. And I hope you guys enjoyed this little trip. It was kind of an unplanned sort of thing. We just kind of got stuck here in Anchorage for a week. And decided we're going to go halibut fishing. But we had such a great time catching those halibut on light gear. And we hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you'd like to see more travel videos to Alaska. More fishing videos. I'll put links down in the video description to other similar videos. But thanks for watching. We guys hope you enjoyed this. And don't forget to click subscribe. We put out new videos every Saturday morning. If you like this video don't forget to check out the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel. Where we have hundreds of videos just like this. And don't forget to click subscribe so you can see other great videos every Saturday morning. And hit that bell button so you'll get notifications. Thanks for watching.