What's the story about worms in the larger halibut? Are thery really there? What kind of worms? How big of a fish? Can you tell a difference in the meat quality between large and small halibut?

The biggest I've caught is about 70 pounds, but I'm looking for the 100+ pounder this summer in Alaska.

Hey,I work on a charter boat in Homer. We've found "wormy" halibut in all different size ranges. The bigger halibut tend to have more worms, and definatly tougher meat. Halibut over 70 or 80 pounds are generally better off released if you're fishing purely for table fare. These are almost a hundred percent females as well once they hit about 80 pounds. I've never heard of the worms causing problems with humans, the meat's safe once cooked, the worms are generally big enough to see, so if you're really concerned about it, you could spend the time to pick them out.

I think alot of people would care alot less about eating fish if they were to candle everything that they eat.Candling is putting a bright light under the fillet to identify the parisites,scary,really.
I brought home a silver that I caught 20 minutes from home and fillet it in my my sink.I left the filletts out on the cutting bourd for an hour or so and the worms crawled out and were squirming on my cutting bourd.I gave that fish to a BUDDY at the wattering hole!
The bigger cod that we would catch up off the aleautions would rarely if ever pass the candling table and would be ground up into mince.Do you want to know what the mince is made into?

fish sticks! mmmmm

A little protien never hurt anyone as long as its cooked. If your really concerned hold the fillets up to the light and pick them out and stay away from the belly meat. The bigger fish have a grainier tecture and don't eat as well.

Tight lines

Kevin

You don't have to worry. The worms are only in the belly meat in halibut, I personaly have never seen them anywhere else in the meat. Cod fish on the other hand have the same worms but there, you will find them througout the meat. As for salmon they to get worms, They look like tape worms. You will find them in the gut cavity, I have never seen them in the meat it's self.

If you were to look very closely you will find worms in most of the fish especially bottom fish. The warmer the water the more they will show. Bottom fish in the late summer are a good example of this.
When I hand lined for halibut and bottom fish up on the Charlottes this pattern was pretty clear. The larger fish over 100 - 200 pounds had possibly a few more worms than the chicks but it was mostly water temperature that showed to be the main element. They won't hurt you but no one like to look at the reality of the situation.

I've got a worm story for you guys. I posted this about a year and a 1/2 ago when it happened, but it seems appropriate to talk about it on this topic. I caught a King off of Dolphin point in the Salt and brought it home. I gutted it and opened up the stomach. My roommate came out to look at the fish and noticed a bunch of small yellow tape worms crawling around. There was not any worms in the meat of the fish, so we figured it was fine. About a month later I'm upstairs sleeping and I get woken up by my roomate screaming at someone franticaly on the phone. I run downstairs and ask him what's going on. He replies.."Dude, I woke up this morning to take a dump..I did that, then I wiped..but I still had a little dingleberry hanging on. So I try and wipe it off and I realize that it feels different. I grab on to this piece of something hanging out my ass and start pulling it out.." (Picture somebody in a bent position raising his hand up from his backside while he's telling me this story) " I keep pulling and all of a sudden I've got 4 feet of tape worm coming out my ass! Then it breaks off and the rest of it goes back inside!!" I am NOT JOKING. He went to the hospital with part of the worm in a ziploc bag, made case of the day, and got some medicine to kill the rest of it. The doctor said it could have been 10-15ft long. I of course was scared to death for the next month every time I took a crap for fear of the same, but nothing ever happened to me. So..if I ever catch a fish that has worms anywhere, I will not eat it.

Funny story chrome. Not for the roomate though. But I just can't seem to picture how he could get a live worm inside him unless he ate the fish raw? Seems logical that the worms would die when they were cooked??