Interestingly enough, I really didn’t get into halibut fishing until the mid-70’s when I had run of my cabin cruiser and started fishing for them with a wire line trolling outfit.
I never had a whole lot of interest in the flatfish before then, not having easy access to a boat, but when I had my “internship” trolling for stripers with the wire line, I started catching halibut with some regularity. From then, I grew to have the attitude, “if you’re gonna catch them, might as well do it right!”
With the wire line outfit, I found all you needed to do to switch from stripers to flatties was to lengthen the distance between the three hoochie skirts and then shorten the dropper to the sinker from 3 – 5 feet long (for the stripers) down to 1 – 2 feet long for the halibut. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, just figure that what I did was to bring dinner closer to the bottom hugging flatfish.
As time went on, I eventually started drifting live bait for the halibut (saves a lot on gas and the outfit used is lighter weight and therefore more fun on which to play). Once again, all I did to change from the traditional three-way swivel drift rig for stripers to a more suitable three-way swivel drift rig for halibut was to shorten the dropper leading to the sinker.
OK, now I thought I had all the answers. Having caught numerous halibut with both the wire line outfit and the lighter live bait drifting outfits, how hard could shallow water trolling be for these fish?
Well, the first time I went shallow water trolling for halibut, I looked like a complete doofus. Using my logical presuppositions from wire lining and bait drifting, I opted for trolling a floating 5.5” Rebel on a three-way swivel rig.
The dropper to the cannonball sinker was shortened to the requisite one foot long. The leader to the floating Rebel was three feet long. Trolling at a reasonable “halibut speed”, all I got for my troubles was snag after snag after tangle of bottom grass.
What went wrong?
My first mistake was in not considering the terrain. When I was wire line trolling and live bait drifting, I was fishing much deeper water where the bottom was mostly sand or rock. The water in the main bay (where I did most of my fishing) was at least 50 – 60 feet deep and areas between 100 – 120 foot depths were often considered.
Trolling in shallow water, on the other hand, was most commonly in water no deeper than twenty feet with a bottom of mud or grass.
What is the difference? This is where most people wished they didn’t sleep during math class (much like I did!).
When fishing the deeper stuff with the heavier outfits, the presentation was more vertical. At those depths, a boat passing overhead wouldn’t be much of a worry for halibut.
A one foot long dropper would present the leader one foot above the bottom. In shallow water, however, it often pays to have the lure or bait trailing further behind the boat.
With that much scope to the line, a three feet long dropper to the sinker would give an “effective altitude” of one foot to the leader … a perfect height to be above the “ground cover” but close enough for Mr. ‘But to consider a meal. Any shorter dropper to the sinker would cause a floating crankbait to dive too deeply and foul in the mud and grass.
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