Well, this year I decided to try Neah Bay for halibut and bottom fish and overall the trip turned out great!

Instead of heading to the Garbage Dump, the ocean was relatively flat, so we headed straight out to Table Rock. If you are not familiar with Table Rock, it is a seamount about 12 miles offshore with plenty of long drifts. This seamount comes up from about 1000 feet on the edges to about 400 feet on the top.

On the first halibut day we ended up with a couple chickens in the 20 lb range. Good eating, but nothing to get too excited about. We ended the day though by stopping by Seal and Sail rocks and cleaning up on lingcod and bottom fish. So overall we ended up with plenty for the freezer.

On Saturday, after catching another small we decided to change it up. Instead of running out further (which we heard there was GREAT fishing at 72 Square another 25 miles out) we decided to take a chance on an area you are probably familiar with from the Neah Bay Fish-N-Map near and just south of the twin humps.

We drifted around the edges of the pinnacle just like the map says to do and managed to hook a whopper.

Neah Bay Halibut near Twin Humps

We did not have a scale with us, but this fish was 50.5 inches so we know by the chart that it weighed 60+ pounds.

The fillets on this fish were fat.

Neah Bay Halibut

Apparently 72 Square was even better. We spoke to a fellow fisherman where his group caught a 39, 2-45 pounders, and a 75 pounder. And apparently they could not keep the big lingcod (25 pounders) off their line either.

We ended the trip by catching two very nice lingcod and more rockfish as we slowly drifted back in the mushroom rock area.

All and all a great trip!!

Hook ’em deep!