My brother and I made an early morning trip inside the bay in search of some halibut. We launched at 7:30, picked up a scoop of live anchovies and headed towards the back bay. We tried a few different spots and then set up a drift just south of the museum. After a few minutes, we each lost fish that felt like shorts. Then I hooked into one that was definitely fighting like a halibut, only much bigger. The fight lasted a minute or two with several runs and the tell-tale head shakes. When I finally got it up to my leader was when I made my mistake. What I normally do when i'm fighting fish is leave my drag fairly loose and keep my thumb on the spool for tension. Well, when I had the fish just out of sight I put just a little too much pressure with my thumb while it made its final run and broke me off. That was definitely the biggest halibut I have ever hooked into and I was very bummed. I can make every excuse I want, but that was entirely my fault for not letting that fish run when it wanted to. Oh well, I got the rest of the summer to get another one.

We hit several spots after that and the fishing was pretty slow. We finished around 2:00.