WORLD RECORD HALIBUT?
IT IS BUT IT ISN’T.
It was a drizzly evening in Izhut Bay on Afognak Island Alaska. After working eight hours at my day job in a local salmon hatchery, I was eager to start the night shift at my second job as owner, lure designer and video producer of Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle. My latest project was putting the finishing touches on (what will soon be) the best bottom fishing jig that this world has to offer and capturing its results on film.
These jigs were originally designed for targeting halibut and lingcod in the Prince William Sound and Kodiak Alaska areas. They proved to be lethal in both locations but there was still something missing. I wanted a lure that would catch all bottom fish species (halibut, lingcod, all rockfish, skate etc.) on the Pacific Coast. My number one policy when designing fishing lures is to ensure that all of the gear I manufacture will not only catch a lot of fish, but also hold up to the punishment of hard fishing and salt water corrosion before I put it on the open market.
((What my buddy Nick Bower and I were doing on that gloomy night on Afognak Island was field testing my “prototype” Bottom Fishing Jig. We fished out of a home-made twenty-foot aluminum skiff in about 100 feet of water. Nick was my one-man video crew prepared to catch all the action on film once we hooked into a fish. Video cameras and rain don’t mix, but when you’re a fishing junkie that’s looking for action, sometimes you have to take the gamble.))
The weather was bad but I had a feeling that fishing would be good. Nick and I knew that several nice halibut were caught out of the honey hole (I call it halibut hill) in Izhut Bay over the weekend. These fish were the first good shot of halibut to show up in the bay this year. You never know how long they will stay before moving on, so it’s important to go after them while the fishing is good.
My line wasn’t down for 10 minutes when the nibbling started. “Roll the camera! I’m getting a bite!” I said to Nick. Then I counted to three and wham, fish on! It felt like I hooked into a Volkswagen Bug down there! It didn’t matter how much torque that I put on the rod, I still couldn’t budge this guy. There was a point where I wondered if I actually had a fish on at all? Maybe I was snagged up on a lost anchor line or some bull kelp that was swaying in the current mimicking fish movement. Fifteen minutes into this fight and getting no where, I handed the rod over to Nick to get a second opinion. We took turns trying to pull the monster up from the ocean floor and after forty minutes, we still hadn’t gained an inch. Finally I realized that it was time to really test our luck and the durability of my gear. I tightened the drag on my Penn reel while praying that my rod, named “The Lever”, built by a good friend Rich Overbeck, would hold up under our new strategy. Nick started up the skiff then put it in gear to try and slowly pull this fish up. Surprisingly, this plan of attack was working. Within five nerve-wracking minutes, a halibut emerged from the deep. It looked like a small whale next to our skiff. There was no way that Nick and I were going to haul this guy in. Even if we could have, it would have ripped our puny skiff to pieces and made halibut bait out of both of us! We harpooned the fish and towed it one and a half miles to the dock. Then our good buddy Drew Aro, showed up with a .44 magnum and shot it twice in the head before we pulled the 420 pound barn door out of the water using a hydraulic crane.
After giving each other high fives, vainly posing for photos, and downing a few cool tasty beverages, we sat next to our colossal catch and thought that we surely must have broken a record with this fish. We soon found out that the current I.G.F.A. (International Game Fish Association) world record halibut was set at 413 pounds. That was seven pounds lighter than our “Moby Dick!” But hold your applause. Unfortunately, the methods that we used to safely land this fish without getting hurt, or even killed, were the reasons which disqualified us from getting into the record books. That’s right. Not only did we break the world record halibut while fishing out of an uluminum skiff, we broke nearly every rule in the book by taking turns holding the rod, pulling the fish to the surface with our skiff, harpooning it, towing it to the dock, shooting it with a .44 and pulling it out of the water with a hydraulic crane. I guess we should have learned the rules of the game before we field tested the best bottom fishing jig that this world has to offer. We did capture our battle with this huge halibut on film however, so we can still share this memory with the world. But it will be through our video and not the record books… this time!
It took great equipment, team work, and of course, a Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle Bottom Fishing Jig to land this monster 420 pound, 91.5-inch monster. Oh, and did I forget to mention, it also took a little luck.
Tony Davis - Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle
THE ALASKAN GULF NESS MONSTER FINALLY CAPTURED BY LOCAL SPORT FISHERMAN/LURE MANUFACTURER
It was an unusual winter Saturday morning in Kitoi Bay on Afognak Island. The crisp fresh air came in at a chilling thirty five degrees. The sun was beaming down through a light fog layer while casting the threat of a clear sunny day at the same time. “What a nice day it’s going to be,” I thought. “If I don’t take advantage and go play in it, I might not see another day like this until next spring.” Fishing comes first on my list of recreational priorities. If the weather is cooperating and I think there are hungry fish somewhere that need to be fed, it’s safe to say that I’ll be throwing my own Tony Davis Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle in the water to find them.
My buddy, Mike Waitt and I headed out to the middle of Izhut Bay where it opens up into the Gulf of Alaska. We found an area that produced good bottom fish earlier in the year and we were hoping to find it again. We were fishing out of an aluminum skiff that is not equipped with electronics. Our only source of relocating a productive bottom fishing area in open water is by using land marks, instinctive juncture and hoping for the best. It is definitely a shady method that is accompanied with trial and error. I guess that’s why it’s called fishing and not catching.
Agreeing that we had arrived at the desired location, we locked in our five dollar bets on who would catch the first money fish (halibut or lingcod). Getting down to business, we baited up our jigs with salmon belly strips and sent them to the bottom of the sea. My jig no more than hit bottom and something big just picked it right up. “It looks like you owe me five bucks sucker!” I said to Mike with a smirk. “Yeah, yeah,” he replied.
The fish appeared to be heavy as it made strong runs and had the drag singing on my Penn reel. I was convinced that it was a nice halibut. But after a couple strong runs this fish pretty much gave up. It was like pulling up a dead weight from that point on. Then I thought that it was going to be a big skate on the end of my line. When you catch a skate, the hook is usually impaled on the under side of their body. While reeling them in, they arch their back and come up through the water stiff and flat. This makes it feel like you are pulling in a ton.
After a few minutes of fighting this fish, guessing what it was, then guessing again, I looked over the side of our skiff to discover that this fish wasn’t what I thought it was at all. Stuck to the end of my line was the biggest lingcod that I have ever seen.
“Wow, check this out! I hooked into the Alaskan Gulf Ness Monster! Come help me out!” I said to Mike.
When the fish came up to the surface and saw how ugly we were, it really started to put up a fight. It was stripping line out of my reel like nothing at all and headed right back down to the bottom of the sea. I was worried that it would get away because I noticed that it was barely caught by the small trailer hook that I install on my bottom fishing jigs and not by the main hook at all. My jigs have a two-hook system designed for catching both large and small bottom fish. This guy was hooked on the one designed for catching the smaller fish. It was only a matter of time before it would get away so we had to work fast. The fish gave up after a few more attempts to shake this lure and the next time it surfaced, Mike was able to gaff it and pull it into our skiff. We couldn’t believe how big this lingcod was. I was confident that, if it didn’t exceed the world record it would at least come close to it.
Needless to say, we were both very excited, throwing high fives back and forth and whopping it up like we had just won the Super Bowl! This lingcod weighed 70 pounds. It fell a little short of the world record but it’s still a very impressive catch that means a lot to me. I designed this lure with targeting all bottom fish species in mind. Catching a world record lingcod on it has always been one of my goals and after Saturday, apparently it still is. There must be a bigger Alaskan Gulf Ness Monster out there somewhere.
Tony Davis – Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle
FATHER, SONS, AND BIG
ORANGE SLOBS!
To make a short story long, it all began in March of 1997. My buddy Ty called from a salmon hatchery in
Prince William Sound, Alaska . He informed me of how good the fishing was up there and invited me to come out and experience it for myself. The next thing I know, my bags are packed and the spawn of a new career is in motion.
Upon my arrival to
Prince William Sound , I stepped out of a float plane and could not believe my eyes. Towering landscapes of mountainous beauty accompanied by salmon jumpers as far as the eye could see. The entire bay resembled a kettle of boiling noodles as leaping salmon churned the surface to a white bubbly froth. I had no idea at the time but this was then and there, when the fetus of my greatest achievement (Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle) was conceived.
A favorite hobby of mine since childhood is the challenge of using my very own hand crafted lures to catch fish. My father and older brother are to thank for the development of this skill. It led my new life in remote
Alaska to a slam dunk when it came to putting the hurt on local salmon and bottom fish populations. I was simply crafting lures that out-fished what my buddies picked up in local stores and having fun.
In 1999, I moved to another remote location near
Kodiak Island and the house hold name in
Alaska fishing tackle was born, “Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle.”
After nine years of living remote, mailing countless letters with enticing photos of big fish and eventually paying for two air plane tickets, my dad and brother finally came out to go fishing with me.
Marine temperatures were two degrees warmer than historically documented this particular year. That was enough to cause a major impact on the ocean floor. Halibut were scarce in the traditional hot spots while dog sharks, which we never see in this area, were suddenly everywhere. No matter what we used or where we fished, sharks were there and the good stuff was few and far between. We were losing the battle in our quest for good bottom fish. This forced us to devise a plan that would hopefully avoid catching any more of these little jerks. We had to boldly go where no man has gone before.
After making a “Hail Mary,” run through the
Gulf of Alaska , we arrived in the middle of no where, dropped our Kodiak Custom jigs to the bottom and saw instant action. “Whoot Yah!” We hit a gusher of hawg sized yelloweye rock fish. These big orange slobs were running anywhere between ten and thirty pounds. Record class contenders were showing up like pop corn in a movie theater.
What began as an insinuation of a bad day fishing, ended in epic proportions. The bite was still uncontrollably hot when that dreaded decision to head for camp hit us. With that, another situation came to light. Finding this spot again was going to be quite a challenge since we were not equipped with a depth finder or G.P.S. Consequently, we had to rely solely on instinctive juncture, surrounding land marks and pure luck if we were ever going to pin point this location another day.
The next morning, we awoke to the idea of stumbling onto that spot again. Before leaving camp, my brother felt a need to fill one of my boots with water as a sick joke. This prank wasn’t much of a surprise considering who it came from. I went along with it knowing that, “He who laughs last, laughs loudest.” Trash talk then filled the room and evolved into making bets on who would catch the first and biggest fish of the day. With
all bets locked in place and my brother distracted, I cut the points off of his hooks while he wasn’t looking and we headed out to sea.
Against all odds, we found the hot spot again. Monster yelloweye were immediately destroying our jigs for a second day. My dad and I were bringing up bottom fish like they were going out of style, while my brother on the other hand, just kept losing his.
I pulled the first fish in, claiming the money for that bet. Not long after that, the “King pin,” inhaled my jig and a thirty pound mammoth emerged from the deep. A yelloweye of this magnitude would surely bring in the cash for the biggest fish as well. It seemed that all bets were now secured to my account and revenge for the water in my boot had been won. I then set my brother up with a new lure that possessed sharp (untainted) hooks so he would be able catch fish too. Now he and my dad were both cranking in several of these big orange slobs that toppled in the mid twenty pound range.
This father and sons excursion quickly became a family adventure that will be treasured for a life time. When you’re using the best, untainted fishing tackle that this world has to offer, anybody can catch fish!
By Tony Davis - Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle