Taming Trophy Halibut Aboard The Happy Hooker!   By: Cal Kellogg August 11, 2008 More Articles by Cal

The fog chilled air and fresh breeze pushing across San Francisco Bay provided a much needed respite from the 90 degree days and stifling smoke filled air I'd been experiencing at my foothill home in Auburn, California.

We were in the midst of a drift off the western face of Angel Island and I was standing at the rail of the Happy Hooker chatting with Captain Jim Smith when the fish grabbed my live anchovy.

The strike wasn't like that of a halibut or striper. There was no sensation of a "bite." Instead my rod just went down with massive steady pressure as if I'd snagged something. "Hey you've got a fish," Jim exclaimed. "No I think I'm snagged I replied. "No way your line is moving down the rail, you might have a big striper," observed Jim.

Jim was right; the line was moving and it was clearly a fish, but the lack of head shakes or quick movement told me it was likely one of the bay's hefty bat rays. "I think it's a bat ray," I blurted out, as the fish moved across the boat's stern tangling several lines. "Don't say that," Jim laughed, "you're going to talk yourself into it."

By the time I got to the far side of the stern Jim had also become convinced that the unseen fish was a bat ray. "I think you're right Cal, that thing is acting just like a mud marlin," quipped the captain.

Despite the fact that I was fishing with a heavy swimbait rod armed with 65 pound braided line, I struggled to get the fish off the bottom. Finally I thumbed the reel and lifted figuring either the leader would break or the ray would come up.

The power of the rod won out and the big brown ray boiled to the surface with a huge ball of tangled tackle in tow. The deckhand shook the ray off the hook and we got down to the business of cutting the tangle apart and getting everyone back into the water.

Catching a big ray while fishing for halibut is like opening a birthday gift and finding a rubber chicken inside. Sure, it was a big fish, heck it was the biggest fish caught on the boat for the entire day, but the problem was that it was a type of fish that no one wants to catch!

The June 27 trip had gotten underway about two hours earlier in the Berkeley Marina. Once everyone had arrived, about 20 anglers in all, Captain Smith motored the Happy Hooker out of its slip, headed over to the live bait receiver, took on several scoops of anchovies and headed out onto the Berkeley Flats.

I was really excited about our prospects for a productive day. The week before the striper bite had been really hot in the bay and the halibut action had been solid for keeper-size fish for a couple months. When I booked the trip, Jim cautioned me that since the tides were getting smaller, we probably would not enjoy the wide open striper action of the previous week, but related that the slower tides should actually improve the halibut bite.

We hadn't been drifting for long, perhaps 10 minutes, when an angler up near the bow hooked and landed the first fish of the day, a feisty 8 pound striper that put up a spirited fight.

After repositioning for second drift, anglers all around the boat started picking up halibut. Most of them were quality keeper size fish, but some of them were above average fish that weighed from 12 to 15 pounds.

We probably spent about 90 minutes working the flats, before the action tapered off. At that point Jim told us to reel up we took a break as he motored the boat over to Angel Island. The bite at the island wasn't fast and furious, but we steadily picked up a halibut or two on each drift and all of them were hefty fish in the 10 to 20 pound class, making my big ugly bat ray all the more frustrating!

As the morning progressed more and more boats showed up at Angel Island, the bite gradually slowed down and the wind really picked up. After a couple unproductive drifts, Captain Smith told us to reel up and we motored over to the south side of the island and tried a drift their. When the south side failed to produce, Jim headed back over to the Berkeley flats.

The water on the flats was really rough. Despite the fact that we were picking up fish Jim decided to make a move. "The conditions stink out here. Let's go find some fish where it isn't so rough," Smith declared over the boat's public address system.

Earlier in the morning as I spoke with Jim he told me that he thought the halibut fishing should be pretty good in the ocean outside the Golden Gate, but said that no one had tried yet, since the bite had been so consistent inside the bay. When he passed Angel Island and continued west I suspected that we were headed for the beaches to the north of the gate. As we slid under the Golden Gate Bridge, my suspicions were confirmed.

For folks that are unfamiliar with the bay area weather pattern, a curious situation often develops in the summer. As the daytime temperature rises in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley, cool air is drawn in from the ocean. The bay provides the easiest route for that air to travel. The net result is that many times during the summer strong winds whip the bay into a bumpy froth, while the ocean waters outside the Golden Gate are downright calm. That is exactly the situation we encountered. As soon as we moved beyond the bridge the wind decreased and the water calmed.

As Captain Smith lined us up for our first drift I noted that there were no other charter boats in sight. Jim had made a bold move, the question was whether or not it would pay off. The answer came within minutes as an angler on the portside yelled "FISH ON". Once again the action wasn't hot, yet most of the fish that came into the boat were trophies by Bay Area standards, weighing 20 to 30 pounds. At one point Jim even commented over the boat's speakers that we weren't going to have a numbers day, but that we were steadily picking up trophy caliber halibut.

On one of the drifts I hooked up with one of the big flatties, only to lose it about 15 seconds later. Clearly it was a day for me to pay my dues. However, it was great seeing so many anglers land their halibut of a lifetime.

Of all the anglers on the Happy Hooker that landed big halibut, Steve Philbin of Oakley topped them all. It is a rare day when an angler catches a limit of three halibut while fishing from a Bay Area charter boat. Not only did Philbin get a three fish limit, but they were huge weighing 28.2, 23.0 and 17.0 pounds. That's a combined weight of 68.2 pounds, the most impressive halibut limit I've ever seen by a wide margin!

Philbin ended up taking home the big fish jackpot, even though he didn't have the largest overall fish. Ric Oren had the largest fish, a whisker short of 30 pounds, but he didn't get in the big fish pool, thinking it would ruin his luck. I love getting into big fish pools, but you certainly can't argue with Ric's results.

As we headed back across the bay toward Berkeley, I had an opportunity to speak with Captain Smith about the fishing we encountered.

"We are having an exceptional year in terms of halibut fishing," said Smith. "According to my records it has been 8 years since we've done this good in terms of numbers."

"What do you think about the quality we saw today?" I asked. "As you know Cal, the average halibut caught in the bay goes about 7 or 8 pounds. The fish we got today are a lot bigger than that. We only get into a steady bite on big halibut like we saw today for a couple weeks during the season and it almost always takes place outside the bay. We hit some spots today that no one has been fishing and it worked out pretty well. Tomorrow I'll head even further up the coast and see if works out again."

Next I asked Jim about the striper action. "The bass are still there," Smith assured me. "Striper fishing is all about the tide. When the tides slow down so does the bass bite. Next week when minus tides kick in again the bass bite will be red hot. During the first two hours of the next minus tide, you'll likely find plenty of stripers on the bite at Alcatraz."

If you'd like to experience an exciting live bait potluck adventure on San Francisco Bay or on the waters outside the Golden Gate give Captain Jim Smith a call at (510) 223-5388 and book a trip on his well appointed fishing machine, the Happy Hooker. Smith is a sport fishing icon here in Northern California with 41 years experience skippering on the San Francisco Bay and coastal waters.