Big Momma

With help from my daughter Camille, I was able to transfer this picture onto the blog. I wish I knew the exact weight or at least the length of this gal. In the back of the tide books there is a table wich gives an estimated weight for halibut, depending on their length.  All the large halibut are females. They grow faster and get larger than their male counterparts. I'm not sure why that is, just God's plan I guess. I was reading some research on halibut which stated that in some circumstances female  halibut can actually change sex to fertilize eggs. It has something to do with ocean conditions- not enough males around to get the job done I think. These fish are unusual anyhow. When they're born they have an eye on each side of their head, but within a short time the left eye migrates to the right side, so both eyes are on the same side.As that happens, the brown coloration that is on both sides gradually fades and one side becomes white as they settle on the bottom. Pacific halibut are long lived, with a life span of 55 years if they can avoid capture by anglers or predators like sea lions. I don't know if Killer Whales eat them or not, but I imagine they would if the opportunity presented itself. Years ago I saw an article in an Outdoor Life magazine in their This Happened to Me column. It was written by a young man who lived here. He said he watched two moose swim from the Pt. Adolphus area across Icy Strait towards Pleasant Island, when a pod of Orcas attacked one of the moose and ate it. He saw the second one later in the day caught up in the kelp near the can bouy on the reef, drowned. That's too bad. Must not have been any sealions around to munch on that day. Anyway, the world record (sport caught) Pacific halibut is 459 pounds, caught in Unalaska Bay in 1996. Supposedly there was a 94 inch,466 pound halibut caught  in 2010 and another in 2011. One was caught by a fellow fishing out of a lodge in Gustavus and one fishing out of a lodge in Pelican. The problem is that unless they were caught out in the Pacific Ocean in area 3A, they were illegal for the anglers to keep. I'd be intested in knowing whatever comes of that. In both cases there wasn't a scale big enough to weigh the fish, although there are commercial scales in Pelican and one in Hoonah which is pretty close to Gustavus if they really wanted to know the true weight, which leads me to believe the fishermen wanted the bragging rights without the law knowing about the fish. The article mentioned that the lodge in Pelican,where one of the fishermen was staying, charges $3400.00 for three days and four nights. I guess for that kind of money you would feel like you could bend the law.