Took a vacation day and decided to go searching for halibut. Hit the beach at 9:15am. with a light salmon rod, reel and 3/4 ounce kastmaster. Surf was 3-5 feet and the water was starting to clear from the recent storm, not too much seaweed or debris but still murky.

Started casting and walking, covering as much shore as possible and for the first thirty minutes, nada. Came upon a nice hole that looked perfect for holding halibut, cast into it and BAM, fish on! Fought the fish for a while and in comes a 14" yellowfin croaker. Well, not a halibut but that was fun, so out goes the kastmaster and fish on again! This one was a nice fat 17" croaker. Okay I'm thinking... "clear out the croakers so you can get to the hallies". After 7 croakers, I started to wonder how many croakers could fit in one hole and decided to go to work. The halibut would have to wait because today the mission was to see how many croakers I could catch before the tide turned. Started pulling them out left and right, one after another. Lost a lure after the line got frayed from catching too many fish. Should have checked the line but was too focused on the mission. My arms were getting tired, not from casting but from catching. At 12:00pm, the bite shut down and the fish count stood at 38 fish! After getting so close to 40, I had to keep trying. After another twenty minutes just one more, a dinky little guy who inhaled all three points of the #4 treble. Decided to quit at 39 fish, by far the most croaker I've caught in a day. All fish were released.

Well, now I know that one hole can hold 39 croakers. That turns out to be one fish per 4 minutes, except for the last one that took 20 minutes. The fish ranged in size from 7" to 18". What was also interesting was the variety of body shapes, three were big fat hogs that looked more liked big mouth bass and a long thin one that almost looked like a corbina. No halibut but a lot of fun.

The moral of the story is, don't walk through a croaker convention, if you're looking to meet a halibut.
Surfan