It took almost 60 years, but Ray Frederick finally caught the fish of a lifetime.
The Silverdale resident has patrolled Puget Sound’s saltwater since the early 1950s. Yet he’d never come across anything like what attacked the end of his line last Sunday just west of Point Wilson.
Then again, few people ever do.
Halibut measuring 81 inches in length and weighing more than 200 pounds aren’t exactly common to Marine Area 6 (eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca).
In fact, it’s been nearly three years since an angler reported catching something in the same ballpark (Sequim’s Dan Schleve hooked a 78-inch flatty in May of 2006) around these parts.
“It was about as long as a guy’s pickup box,” said Glen Stovall of Swain’s General Store in Port Angeles, who weighed the bruiser using a forklift.
And big enough to line up at linebacker for the Washington Huskies football team . . . especially these days.
Not bad for a 76-year-old retiree and his fishing partner Dick McDonald, 62, of Bremerton.
“We might be older,” Frederick said, “but we got more experience.”
They probably have a little more patience as well.
Third time a charm
Frederick and McDonald had already covered a couple of spots (Mid Channel and Foulweather Bluff) before heading farther west.
They were fishing in the Kitsap Poggie Club’s annual halibut derby in search of a monster flatty to throw into the ladder.
Frederick, a former Poggie Club president, had found luck fishing a plateau west of Point Wilson in the past, so they decided to head that way about 10 a.m.
“I was about halfway between Point Wilson and Protection Island in about 95 feet of water,” Frederick said. “There’s a big deep valley in there [east of Protection Island], and then it comes back up when you get further east and it comes into a plateau.
“When we stopped there, about 10 minutes into it another boat landed a 50-pounder. About 20 minutes later, I landed the big one.”
There was little doubting its size from the start.
“It made some powerful runs while it was still down close to the bottom, and I hadn’t experienced that with halibut before,” Frederick said.
“It got within 30 feet of the surface and it just sort of hung there. It was just like trying to reel in a big heavy weight.”
The two adversaries dueled for approximately 30 minutes in Frederick’s estimation.
After he got its monstrous head to the surface, McDonald speared it, put a line through its mouth and they lifted it into the boat.
No Glock 9 or tow job with these two.
Of course, as Frederick admitted, “If I would have known it was over 200 pounds, I probably wouldn’t have tried to get it in the boat.”
Not surprisingly, the Poggie Derby folks staked out at John Wayne Marina were ill-equipped to deal with it.
So without a scale on hand that could accurately weigh a fish so mammoth, they headed to Swain’s General Store. The official weight, according to Stovall: 223 pounds.
That’s about a second-grader shy of the state record (288 pounds).
And to state the obvious, it was big enough to win the Poggie Derby’s $440 first prize.
Throw in 100-plus pounds in halibut fillets and that’s quite a haul, literally.
Other outdoors items
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife gave the go-ahead for a final set of razor clam digs at Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis and Mocrocks on Saturday.
Long Beach and Twin Harbors will also be open for morning digging Sunday.
The department is able to offer one more dig this season, because there are sufficient clams remaining in the total allowable harvest for the four ocean beaches, said Dan Ayres, Fish and Wildlife coastal shellfish manager.
Low tides for this weekend are as follows:
• Saturday — -1.2 feet at 7:23 a.m.
• Sunday — -1.2 feet at 8:02 a.m.
For more information, visit www.wdfw.wa.gov.
PT shrimp closure
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
The recreational spot shrimp fisheries in Marine Areas 9 (Admiralty Inlet) and 10 (Seattle/Bremerton) were closed on Wednesday after two days of harvesting.
As short as that might sound, it’s actually the same amount of time it took shrimpers to haul in last year’s 6,500-pound recreational quota in Area 9.
Luckily, shrimpers can always head south to Hood Canal, which should be open to shrimp harvest Saturday and next Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors and sports columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column appears on Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at matt.schubert@peninsuladailynews.com.
