Favorite Halibut Trolling Bait / Technique

[drpower]

Nice barn door there,drpower. Just curious what brand and model hali reels you are running there.I'm in the market for
a couple nice reels this offseason.

They are Fin-Nor MA30T. I really like the 6:1 gear ratio for fast retrieval. There are a lot of choices for nice reels, Shimano, Diawa, Avet, Penn, Okuma. My suggestion would be to avoid the 2 speed, because 1st gear has always been way too slow on every reel I've tried in my opinion, we used 6:1 on a Halibut that was close to 400 lbs got it to the boat and released it. Lever drag, not a star drag. No level wind, I hate those. It's all what you're used to though. One problem I have with the Fin-Nor is the extra clamp they provide. It doesn't lock to the body like an Avet system does, it just locks the foot plate. We had a good size fish on and the reel came off all the sudden, after hand lining the fish in we looked at the reel and the 4 small screws holding the foot had come loose. The extra locking clamp and foot were still attached to the rod. How stupid a design is that?

 

[sir-vivor]

great tips here any new ones !

 

[Red Monster]

Maybe we could SEE some of these great hali trolling lures? That would be awesome.

Are circle hooks ever used while trolling?

 

[sammyslabber]

When I first started pounding the Victoria Waterfront I discovered I would get the odd hali while trolling the bottom for salmon;lure type wasn´t an issue,spoons,squirts,hootchies and bait worked.One particular day after a night of chart studying I picked a spot along the Lagoon beach side; the spot had a trough leading out to deep water,migratory hali highways,good substrade (sand/gravel) and loads of commie crab pots.I rigged up a couple of the largest herring teaser heads rigged with heavy leader and a large treble hook, then set the boat in motion,trolling motor was used to keep the boat straight and a pulse or two to keep the boat moving with the ebb tide.Bottom bouncing provides the best result,after an hour I landed a 65lb.We also learned to target hali by trolling large hootchies behind a flasher;a tatic proved sucessful by an old Japanese hali fisherman.