Hey all, I've lived in Homer all my life and work on one of the aforementioned half day boats. The basic idea of a half day trip or overnight is alot of people and alot of fish. On our half day trips we need to catch 40 halibut in about 1.5 hours of fishing time. Those who think that catching 40 halibut and having them all over 100 pounds is possible in that time frame are grossly mistaken, and a sign in our office states that our average fish caught is 10-30 pounds. The same idea is essentially true for an overnight trip, except that on that the skipper is looking to catch 80 to 100 halbut in about six hours of fishing time. Big fish are not found swimming around in school by the hundred, so if you're looking for big fish this is not the way to go.
There have been many days as well that we've had better size averages on a half day trip than many of the full day six - packs, this is where choosing the right captain is essential, and Mike Swan is one of the top as Ragnar stated previously.

-Ragnar- did you fish on the Jackpot or the Sizzler? If it was on the Jackpot you should have fished with me.