Alaska Halibut Fishing | Wild Strawberry Lodge

Your Alaska halibut fishing charter will truly be a treat if you’re into big, beefy bottom-feeders! Our waters are home to the legendary ‘barn door’ Pacific Halibut. Catching a hundred-pound halibut is an Alaskan dream. These big boys will test your arm strength and reward you with tasty white fillets! Besides huge halibut, our guests also enjoy landing trophy-sized lingcod and rockfish.

To see what our guests think about the quality of our sport fishing adventure, visit our Testimonial page. We deliver a great Alaskan sport fishing experience!

As far as Alaska lodges go, we are among the best! For an amazing salmon fishing charter, halibut charter, and an all-around great Alaska fishing vacation, choose Wild Strawberry Lodge. Visit our planning page to start your dream fishing vacation! 

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ALASKA HALIBUT FISHING GEAR | WILD STRAWBERRY LODGE

For halibut fishing, you will use shorter, stouter rods with heavier lines and circle hooks. The hooks are baited with guts, gills, herring, and other chunks of bait fish, which send out a scent trail to the halibut. Each line has a one- to two-pound lead.

Since halibut are bottom feeders, you need to let the line out until the lead hits the bottom, and then reel up four to six turns. If you leave the bait on the ocean floor, you may catch a starfish or a non-hungry halibut might lay on the bait, saving it for later. Reeling up off the bottom a few turns increases your chances of hooking a halibut sooner. Then you wait. Halibut have a strong sense of smell and will come from a long way away once the scent reaches them.

ALASKA HALIBUT FISHING TECHNIQUES

With a circle hook, halibut won’t get hooked immediately. They nibble the bait first, then take it back to the bottom to eat. The circle hook will catch in the corner of their mouth and gradually work its way into their jaw. So when you first notice a bite, don’t reel up right away. If you reel up too soon, the halibut may follow and hold onto the bait for a while but will soon let go and swim back down, and you will reel up an empty line.

When the rod is heavily jerking, it usually means the halibut is hooked. At that point, it is safe to start reeling the halibut up. Leave the rod in the rod holder, reeling in motion with the ocean swell. When the boat goes down in the swell, reel the line in. When the boat comes up, hold the tension on the line, and reel again once the boat goes back down. This prevents muscle fatigue.

When the halibut is visible below the surface, take the rod out of the holder. Do not reel so much that the halibut’s nose breaks the water. That will cause it to go crazy and power back to the bottom, possibly 400 feet down, and you will have to bring it back up. Your captain and deckhand will assist in either gaffing or shooting the halibut (depending on its size) and bringing it on board.

Halibut (Hippoglossus Stenolepsis)

Start showing up in April, become prolific in May, and generally are caught through the first half of September. Weather becomes quite stormy late September and into the fall, which makes halibut fishing more difficult. The current regulations limit guided anglers on charter boats to one halibut per day, with a reverse slot limit. The 2024 guided anglers may retain one Halibut 36 inches and shorter (which is 40 lbs. & smaller), OR those 80 inches or longer (196 lbs. or bigger). Any Halibut between 36 inches and 80 inches are protected for breeding purposes.

Identification: Dark brown (top) side and a white (bottom) side. Both eyes on the dark side of its body when mature (8-12 years old).

Delicate, firm, flaky, sweet flavored, snow-white flesh.