Well it happened for me on August 7th. Fish of a lifetime and the only and last 100+ pound Halibut I will ever take! I know they are breeders and the meats not that great. So I don't need to hear the lectures! Anyway, I spent 2 days at Talon Lodge with a corporate group of 12 guys. We headed out Saturday morning after arriving Friday afternoon to an incredible dinner at the lodge. It took about an hour to arrive at the fishing grounds (Cape Georgiana, I think) We fished for Salmon for the first few hours and did pretty well on the Coho and even caught a few Kings. We then decided to head out a bit further to hook up on some halibut and after a few minutes of tapping the bottom with a large circle hook loaded with some salmon guts & gills it was game on for me with the huge fish. I knew it was big when I couldn't get it off the bottom and the skipper even thought it was snagged but I assured him it wasn't. the fish finally came up about 20 feet and then headed right back down to hug the bottom again. The tug of war lasted about 15 minutes and then it planed right up to the top. When it hit the surface it was standing straight up and down and I thought it was about 150 pounds or so, then it rolled over and I saw the white side and said HOLY Crap this is big! The skipper decided to shark hook the lip and then hold on for dear life while the deck hand smashed the head...I am not sure I had the option to let it go if I wanted to. Remarkably they were very effective and subdued the fish after a few minutes of intense thrashing. The next step was to bring it on board which I was quite nervous about but we managed to bring it aboard and brain spiked it and cut the gills and it was game over for the big girl. This fish measured 83 inches! We fished for a few more hours and headed back to the lodge. Tons of pictures were taken and the cocktails were flowing! The bet for the biggest fish of the day was 20 from each guy and a 1 hour full body massage which I thoroughly enjoyed!
Headed out the next day for more salmon action and we hit our limit of King Salmon and scored few more coho as well, we went to the same spot for Halibut and I hooked another big one on a lead head jig and handed off the pole to one of our customers who told me he understood why I didn't want to do it again as the fish sounded repeatedly. after a few minutes the fish came unbuttoned to a collective sigh. Our biggest King was 30 pounds for the day. What a fantastic lodge and a great experience that I will never forget.