Winter Harbour halibut fishing in 2014 was excellent as always. Our halibut season started off with a bang in June when we had the Big Coast TV crew out for some stellar salmon and halibut action. We were at one of our closer halibut holes (only about 6 miles from Kains Island) the first day when we set the anchor and only had to wait about 30 minutes before we had a monster hali take two baits from two rods! Long story short, 60 minutes later we were measuring a 6’6″ halibut roughly weighing 260lbs. We released it and ended up with a couple beauties right around 50lbs. We will have this Big Coast TV episode added to the site within a couple weeks.

The rest of the season never slowed down for the Winter Harbour halibut fishing. The average fish we were bringing in were between 40-60lbs with many fish measuring within a couple centimeters of that magic 133cm mark which equates to about 70-75lbs. The consistent halibut fishing lasted right until our last day on September 15th when we brought our limit in completing a 100% success rate on halibut limits for the year!

Fresh salmon and octopus were the bait of choice this year as it usually is every year (except the year the mackerel were in). Norwegian jigs and lead heads with rubber glow worms seemed to produce some of the days when those halibut needed to be antagonized a little more.

This past year we had some exceptional weather which had me in the Brooks area a lot more and found most of our halibut down that way. We did venture towards the top end of the island and it would always pay off as well, but you definitely need to know where you are going as this is an enormous area and big water. If you are looking for closer spots it is quite easy to troll up smaller halibut just outside the Lippy Point area or head to the 300 ft edge and drift along and you will find them! The key is fresh bait.

One more note on Winter Harbour halibut fishing… There are a lot of halibut in the area and like all fish they don’t always bite bait when it is put in front of them so you have to be patient sometimes and wait for a tide change or for the bait scents to reach them miles away. But as the saying goes, “stick and stay and make em pay!”

–Oli