533 lb. halibut pulled from Bering Sea

[matcom]

:wow:

<snip>

ANCHORAGE -- What might be the largest Pacific halibut ever documented was pulled from the Bering Sea off St. Paul Island by the crew of the fishing boat Miss Mary.

The 8-foot, 2-inch behemoth was estimated at 533 pounds -- based on its length, according to crewman Barry Davis of Anchorage. He provided photographs of the fish taken aboard the long liner skippered by his brother, Pat, from Seattle.

No official records are kept on the size of commercially caught halibut in Alaska, but the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Wildlife Notebook Series says the "largest ever recorded for the Northern Pacific was a 495-pound fish caught near Petersburg."

The International Pacific Halibut Commission, which manages halibut in the North Pacific, pegs the largest fish at an estimated 500 pounds.

The fish caught on Sept. 5 was two inches longer, at 98 inches. It outweighs by almost 75 pounds the sport-fishing record, set by Jack Tragis of Fairbanks near Dutch Harbor in 1996. That halibut tipped the scales at 459 pounds.

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/12/odds_halibut.htm

[GOPisEvil]

1. That's one hell of a halibut!

:wow:

[demnan]

2. That's not a fish, that's a whale!

[rjbcar27]

3. Hope he's got a licence for that.

Wonder if they named it Eric?

[underpants]

4. Ya shoulda seen the one that got away

:grr:

[MissMillie]

11. a bigger one got away... that would be crappie.....

.... I'm getting a haddock just thinking about it.

[underpants]

12. Salmon here but I don't want to be a cod

:spank:

[Superfly]

5. That's not a fish...that's a barn door!

They're still going to charge $10 + per pound, though...

[trof]

6. On my first trip to Anchorage

I stopped in at a seafood market.
They were cleaning a huge, flat fish.
"Wow, that's the biggest flounder I've ever seen."
The guy started laughing so hard I was afraid he'd cut his hand off with the filet knife.
"It's a halibut. Same family."
duh

[emad]

7. Maybe it's one of Mad Vlad Putin's strategic submersibles

on active reconnaisance duty?

[arwalden]

8. Good Enough For JEHOVAH!!

:-)

[GregW]

10. I didn't like the others, they were all too flat

:eyes:

[PDittie]

9. I caught an approximate 150 lb. halibut in Alaska

near Ketchikan. (They also estimated weight based on length; she was about 5 1/2 feet long, as long as a regular fishing rod).

It was the size of a dining room table, and it felt like reeling in a wet mattress. They don't fight and run like a sport fish but they do struggle.

"She" because nearly every halibut of that size are mature females (being anywhere from 30-40 years old). A fish like that will spawn over a million eggs a year; when they told me that I said, "release her", and they did, immediately.

I've got video of the end of the fight; it took about 45 minutes to bring her to the surface (she never left the water; we measured her as she lay at the water's top). I can't watch it because it makes me seasick and exhausted all over again.

Another factoid: they spent their entire lives lying on the bottom, so one eye literally migrates over to the other side of their head. Two eyes, on the same side.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. How did it manage to go undetected by sonar up to now?

*