Halibut Fishing & Processing

Baiting up a halibut skate today. We got 30 hooks we're gonna soak overnight. We're using some old silver salmon, coho as we call them, for bait from last year's catch. It's been in the freezer, so we've got those cut up and now we're baiting up our skate. The way I bait it is the way I was taught was with the salmon heads.

You go in through the mouth and up through the nose.

That's the way you do it. Just to give the bait a chance to hold on for as long as it can without, you know, sea creatures taking it off the hook. But that's a good— anytime you bait a halibut hook, you want to get through the actual skin of the, of the fish also, because that— if you just go through the meat, it's not going to hold the hook. We're just going to go down towards, uh, Cape Sultry, between Cape and Round Point. And I know a spot there that in the past I've pretty good.

I don't know if anybody's sat there yet this summer, so we'll just kind of see. Just trying to pick a close spot that is, uh, that has paid off in the past. So we're setting a traditional halibut skate. Long lining is what some people call it, but it's just a buoy down to an anchor, and then that anchor that's sitting on the bottom— along the bottom there's a long line is what they call it— and then spaced out on that line is all your hooks. I usually space these out about anywhere from 2 to 3 fathoms.

That's like 12 to 18 feet roughly. That's just based on how much ground line you got. If they're closer, no biggie. If you catch a fish on there, sometimes they'll, they'll pull it over by the next hook, and that's all right. The way we're setting out right now, we're going with the wind, so the wind's kind of helping push the boat along.

Also, if you're going in towards the wind, then you don't get as good of a set.

We set out a 30-hook halibut skate yesterday, and, uh, we're gonna go check it now and see, see what's on there. I set my expectations low, so whatever happens, happens. I like, uh, like in the 40, 50, 60-pound range. You know, the bigger the fish, the more work, but also the bigger the fish, the thicker the meat. And I just think those smaller ones taste better, honestly.

That's how you put your weight in it so it's not all arms. We are pulling up a line with an anchor and potentially a few halibut from— I think we set in about 300, 250 to 300 feet of water, so it's not an easy task. Plus you got the wind kind of pushing the weight of the boat. So in the olden days, this is how they did it all before they had like hydraulics and electric pullers and stuff. Oh, we got a chicken.

A chicken halibut.

That's a little guy. I was hoping for a little bit bigger than that, but whoa, that usually means there's a fish close by. Big knot, big fish. Oh, another little fish. Keep coming with that slack.

Fighter, not much of a fighter, but we do have a mess here on our hands. Oh yeah, there's a few little fish. Okay, holy God! Oh, it's a big fish! Okay, wait, hold it, hold it, hold it.

Easy, easy, easy, easy. Oh no, don't, don't grab the hook yet. I'm gonna wait. Okay, let go. I'm gonna tie this off.

Oh my gosh! I don't think I'm gonna be able to get this fish in. He's too big for me to pull over the side. Hawa chin.

Okay, watch out, watch out, he's gonna kick, he's gonna flop around.

Good fish, Jazz! He brought us good luck right when he grabbed a hold of it. One honorable fish, that's what I was looking for. With a fish that size, I anticipate us driving through town today and giving away a lot of halibut. Hey, they're still coming aboard!

You just got to be safe, especially when you're pulling halibut aboard. They're big fish, they're powerful. You see a big halibut, you kind of want to get excited, and it does get exciting, but you've got to sit down and make sure you're— everything's, everything's in line and ready and proper. I pulled quite a few halibut on this boat and I've never had to, uh, go drop the front gate. So that just shows the size of the fish, and that's why it's always nice to have two people, because if you had a fish like that and you're by yourself in a small boat, it can get real dicey.

But this has got to be safe. Anything can happen and it happens real fast. At the end of the day, it's all about respect. These fish have had our back for hundreds and thousands of years, and we only treat them with respect. So it's not that we're just out here catching fish to kill them.

We're— a fish has to die so that we can eat and so that families can eat. And as long as you keep that in the back of your mind and you have some gratitude towards that, All in all, a pretty successful pull, I would say. So now the fun part is over and the work begins. We got to bleed them out, and bleeding out— bleeding them out is just going to allow all the blood to work through the fish. And so when you're cutting it up, you're not dealing with too much bloodshot.

All you got to do is kind of have a, a little bit of curiosity on how to go get them, and, and actually the motivation behind it as far as like preserving, preserving the culture around our food. And like halibut's a super staple in our diet. We use it year-round and just having the knowledge to go get it and to work on it and process it and put it up, you know, goes a long ways.

I started cutting a making the cut all the way from the back of the gill plate all the way to the tip of the tail, right down the spine. And then once you got that, you come right below the stomach, make a mark or make a cut, because that's the stomach meat there. You don't get any of the flay off of that, although there is a way to, uh, get the stomach meat out on the bigger ones. And then above the head, you make a slit and then just start following those backbones all the way down. Taking the meat right off, right off of the backbone there.

Just got to take your time, you know, make sure your tools are sharp, sharp, sharp your knives.

These little ones, you can take them all off in one big chunk, one side per fish. So for the cheek with the big halibut, there's a big chunk of meat in here that the elders love to eat. And the way we get it is you can kind of get a feel of where the meat is, and then you kind of go right behind the eye here, make a cut, and then there's a gill plate. So it's all hard around here, but you take that knife kind of a downward angle until you find that gill plate, come around, follow that gill plate. Down, down, down, down, cut.

Big circle cut.

And then you pull out your cheek. And that's the most prime part of the meat. That's like the prime rib. Prime rib halibut. Just being able to bring kids out that haven't done it and even do it myself year after year It's just a good reminder on like different ways that we can use the land and the environment to kind of keep us alive and thriving and keep some of the traditions alive, going after fish, you know.

Halibut's a big staple. It's one of the most nutritious fish we have. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Probably my most favorite thing to do is just to give this stuff away. You know, I put up enough for myself, which is, I don't need a whole lot. My family gets some, my friends get some, a lot of elders get some.

This is what we do. We're just out living from the land, and at the end of the day, that's the main goal of our program at Traditional Food Security is just kind of showing people that we have all these resources right in our backyard.