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Bottomfish - Halibut Fishing - Red Snapper - Lingcod - Port Hardy Fishing Charter
Port Hardy also has numerous types and sizes of bottomfish.
PACIFIC HALIBUT:
Halibut fishing in the Port Hardy area is very productive from mid-April to late September. Halibut can be caught all year but the weather is a big factor while fishing in the fall. Halibut are the largest flatfish and are among the largest fish in the sea. The largest Atlantic Halibut are over 700 pounds and Pacific Halibut have tipped the scales over 500 pounds.
Larval halibut feed on plankton and halibut aged 1-3 feed on small shrimp-like animals and small fish. As halibut increase in size, fish become more important in the diet. They eat cod, sablefish, pollock, rockfish, sculpins, turbot, and other flatfish. Octopus, crabs, and clams, and an occasional smaller halibut also contribute to their diet. When cleaning halibut the amount of edible meat you will get is about 50% recovery from the round weight.
Halibut grow about 3 inches per year, and females grow faster than males. An age 10 male will average 10 pounds while a ten year old female will average about 19 pounds. Most halibut over 60 pounds are females. In the 2001 fishing season many halibut tipped the scales over 100 pounds, and a few were recorded over 200 pounds. (Our biggest that year was 203 pounds caught by my father)
YELLOWEYE ROCKFISH (Red Snapper):
Yelloweye Rockfish are a common catch in Port Hardy all summer long. These fish will range from 5 pounds up to 29 pounds. In keeping with their name these fish have bright yellow eyes. Many people call these fish Red Snapper. Their eyes are highlighted with a spine above each eye socket and rough ridges behind each eye. Their coloring is a yellow-orange and the fins are pink with black on the tips. A large spiny dorsal fin is another characteristic of these fish. Yelloweye rockfish are slow growing. A fish weighing 20 pound will be approximately 60 years old.
LINGCOD:
Lingcod are open June 1-Sept 30 and are abundant all around the Port Hardy area. Lingcod will range from about 5 pounds up to 60-70 pound monsters. Most fish over the 18 pound mark are the females which can produce 60,000 to 500,000 eggs depending on their size. Releasing these large females back to the ocean helps dramatically with the conservation effort to keep the stocks healthy.
Male Lingcod will guard the nest and apparently fans or moves water over the eggs with his tail. The eggs take about six weeks to hatch and sexual maturity is reached in 2-3 years. Lingcod primarily eat other fish and smaller lingcod.
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