Gary Kernan of Alaska Fish On booked our entire Kenai fishing adventure, including this deep sea fishing charter.  On this day we woke at 4AM and drove from our cabin in Soldotna down to the boat docks in Homer to fish for these giant halibuts.  As it worked out again, everyone on the boat caught their limit by 4PM.  I was the luckiest one having caught the biggest fish, which was over sixty pounds.  It was so large that I bruised my thigh and tore up the ligaments in my arm while reeling it in.  The owner of the fishing charter, Richard Baker, had to shoot the fish with a 44 magnum so we could get it in the boat. 

This was nothing compared to the racks that Richard has brought in before.  There was a newspaper clipping in his boat with a story about a fishing rodeo where he brought home more than 1200 pounds of halibut in one day.  My fish was a shrimp in comparison to some of these leviathans.  On that day he hooked up with 10 fish over 100 pounds.  During our outing he told us stories about catching a 200 pound halibut that took almost an hour to pull in with four stocky marines trading off on the reel.

This has to be one of the most enjoyable days of my life thus far, even with the cold drizzle and the choppy seas that nearly made me sea sick.  I cam away wondering what it would have been like to land a 200 pound trophy.  Fish like these can really test your manhood.  Just imagine what it was like for the 400 pound halibut hanging up in the Anchorage Airport. 
 

Above are some friends we made during our fishing adventure.  This is Gary and Jim from Los Angeles. We were stuck on the boat for two days with these guys, who turned out to great fun.  I smudged out their faces because I forgot to ask them for permission to publish this picture.

FYI, we actually saw some active volcanoes in the distance while on this deep see fishing expedition.