LIGHTNING MAY NOT strike twice in the same place.
When it comes to mammoth halibut, however, that might just be another story altogether.
For the second time in two weeks, a Kitsap Peninsula angler has taken a 200-plus pound halibut out of the water near Protection Island.
This time it was 49-year-old Mike Mollison of Bremerton, who brought in a 76 ½-inch long flatty last Saturday.
It was a fish Mollison had seen before, but only in his dreams.
“The night before [a fishing trip] you sit there and dream and picture what you’re going to do,” the life-long fishing junky said. “Believe me, I’ve pictured this one a million times before.”
Of course, that didn’t prepare him for what he would encounter on Saturday. That’s the way it works with one-in-a-million fish.
Even if they come along twice in two weeks.
Old faithful
Mollison had come across big fish before near Protection Island.
Just last year he’d lost what he estimated to be a 100-plus pound fish in almost the same exact spot. He tried to gaff it, and the fish got away.
When he revisited the hole again on Saturday, he had his spear and rope on the ready. The only problem: he was all alone on his 16-foot boat.
So after the brute of a fish struck the end of his line, Mollison had to call for reinforcements. Luckily, his friend Tony Robinson was fishing close by.
“If he wouldn’t have been there I couldn’t have done anything,” Mollison said.
“I begged him to come over and help me and within an instant he came. We took turns [reeling] every 10 to 15 minutes until our arms were sore. It was six inches a pull with the drag full-bore.”
Needless to say, having hooked the fish in almost 300 feet of water, the fight went on for quite some time.
“It was quite the ordeal,” Mollison said. “It was like we were pulling up the bottom. We’d get him up about 40 or 50 feet and he ran back down [to the bottom].”
As soon as Mollison got a look at it, all he could think was, “How in the heck is this thing going to fit in the boat?”
It took nearly an hour and a half, but Mollison and Robinson got the monster in the boat.
“I can’t believe how we even lifted it in,” he said. “It’s funny what adrenaline will do.”
Mollison did not get to weigh the fish, but did take its measurements: 76 ½ inches long and 37 inches in diameter. That translates to 234 pounds on the halibut length chart provided by piscatorialpursuits.com.
Silverdale’s Ray Fredericks caught a 223-pound halibut, weighed at Swain’s General Store in Port Angeles, on May 3. Yet his fish was also 81 inches long, nearly four more than Mollison’s monster.
“Truthfully, it didn’t even matter [about the official weight],” Mollison said. “I just knew it took three people to pick it up and put it in the pickup truck.”
Prior to this month, the last time an angler reported catching a flatty of the same magnitude was in 2006 (Sequim’s Dan Schleve hooked a 78-inch beast).
Now we’ve had two caught in a 14-day period. A freak occurrence to say the least.
“My arms are still sore,” Mollison said, “but I’ll take that pain anytime.”
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors and sports columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column appears on Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at matt.schubert@peninsuladailynews.com.
