This comes a couple weeks late, but since 'Drew was Jones-in' for porn, thought I'd oblige.

Y'all can call 'em 'butts if ya want, but I always thought that was a bit derogatory for such a fine-eating fish.

Ho'd a ride on King Katosan's Parker a couple weeks ago to wrangle up some flatties from the briny deep. We motored for four hours thru rather inclement seas for over 40 miles... only to meet up with the rest of the Westport fleet on a small mound rising up from the coastal canyon. The only catch was that the top of this mound was 700 + feet down. Holy Moses!

Blue skies were a welcome sight, but wind and water conditions were such that a free drift was all but impossible. Katosan had to give full attention to driving the boat to minimize our line scope and optimize our drops to the bottom. Our buddy Ron had the hot rod, and he had brought up 3 chicken halibut (WHEW... what a workout!) before I stuck my first fish.

I pumped and reeled.... and pumped and reeled... ah crap... I just decided to put that dam rod in the holder and just started crankin' slow and steady against lifeless resistance. And for all that effort, I finally pulled in this mutant with arrested development. Nasty old arrowtooth with what appeared to be incomplete eye migration.... left eye got stuck on the dorsal ridge instead of coming all the way over onto the right side of the face.





Snaggly toothed ugly bugger went back! As did most of the bitty little chickens that we kept winching up from the depths. Finally I stuck something really good, doubling the rod over with authority and repeatedly taking line all thru the battle. When the fish finally shows color, we see it's a double hookup with the big boy on the bottom jig. As we go to unhook the top fish, the bottom one gains momentary slack and wiggles off the hook! DAMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Oh well.





Finally settled on three keepers ranging from 20-25# before calling it a day. The ride in was a slam dunk with seas largely to our back. Here's the meathook hero shot once we were safely back at the dock.

Good eats you ended up with there, Doc.
That released morph is something else! Nightmarish, in fact. Never seen teeth like that on a halibut, let alone that bad eye thing.....you couldn't fix him up?

Nice fish. That Arrow was one ugly bugger.

Fishin 500 to 700 ft makes me wish I worked out.lol. I bought one of those aftco shoulder harnesses for when I start getting worn out. Still allows you to give a good fight but also take a break if needed.


Thanks for the porn.

Damn, that doesn't sound like much fun. Most of my halibut fishing in Alaska is in less the 300' of water, I have 1 spot that consistantly produces bigger then avg. fish but its 420' deep, I have to have the right guests (younger guys) to fish there, too much whining otherwise.

Got spoiled in Yakutat last summer catching them in 80 to 160 feet of water.

The old guys on the Wa coast just buy expensive electric reels. One of my buddy's hooked up at 1000' last weekend with something big but came off after a few hundred feet. They were running those Dawai electrics.

I'd love to get em in 80'. Must be nice;)

The picture of the Arrowtoothfish thing kinda makes me dizzy. Reminds me of one of those fun house mirrors. Weird things happen that deep I guess.

OK did the Google thing on those arrowtooth flounder. Turns out one of the unique features is that the eye is visible from the blind side... it's supposed to stop migrating at the dorsal ridge of the head.

Poked around thru some of the assorted images and found this lovely thing. Yup, right up my alley.

we caught an arrow tooth once at neah bay and ralph the fish cleaner made us feed it to the sea lions

They also call'em Turbot. Saw it on the Menu for dinner on a Princess Cruise...didn't touch that!!!

Ralph is smart...those thinks will stink up the neighborhood something fierce, and taste worse than they smell...you do NOT want to be cooking one of those buggers in your house, and you definitely do not want to be eating one.

Fish on...

Todd

I had an ex girlfriend back in highschool that all my buddys called arrowtooth. Nice butts!