A season of modest-size Southcentral halibut came to a screeching halt Monday when Aaron Buscher of Conifer, Colo., landed a 337-pounder out of Seward, the largest halibut brought to dock in the Resurrection Bay town in years.
Fishing aboard to Crackerjack Voyager south of Montague Island at about 11:30 a.m., Buscher lowered a 17-ounce Youngquist lead head jig with a white 8-inch Berkley Power Bait Grub lure into the current-swept waters.
Almost immediately, the halibut swallowed the bait.
The 7-foot, 4-inch fish ripped off line as it took several runs during the 45 minutes it took Buscher to wrest it from the deep.
He used 50-pound test braided line and a Penn Torque 10 reel mounted to a 7-foot Penn Torque rod.
Weighed on a certified scale in Seward, the fish is the largest ever caught by a Crackerjack charters angler and puts the Seward derby in the enviable position of having the largest derby fish caught in Southcentral. A 248-pounder leads the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby.
Read more of this story at adn.com