Lawrence Genge and Garfield Caines recently hauled a monster from the briny ocean depths.

They were pulling up their trawl off Anchor Point on June 26 when a 400-pound Atlantic halibut breached the surface on the pointy end of a baited hook. The two fishermen hooked it with their gaff, tied a rope around its tail and spent the next 45 minutes hauling the fish aboard.

“The two of us were pretty excited,” said Genge. “He was still alive, but he wasn’t either bit wild, just the same.”

It was the biggest halibut Genge had seen in 25 years. The cleaned fish weighed 316 pounds. Not bad for 45 minutes’ work considering the average price this year for halibut is $3 a pound. “The halibut are coming back,” said Genge. “From Sandy Cove to Port au Choix everyone is having a good year, getting 1,500 to 2,000 pounds.”

This year turbot gillnets had to be moved to deeper water to avoid a large halibut bycatch. Genge attributes the resurgence in halibut stocks to the shrimp fleet adding Nordmore grates to their trawls during the mid 1990s. The Swedish designed plastic grates keep groundfish out of shrimp trawls, reducing bycatch.

His theory is supported by Don Ball, west coast director of resource management for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“It’s throughout 4R (west coast), it’s not just isolated to one particular area,” said Ball. “Over the past three years fishermen have been seeing an explosion in young small halibut.”

(From the Northern Pen)