Homer Alaska Halibut Fishing Charter

Let's look at the highly publicized halibut fishing found in the Homer area along with some tips and tricks used to increase your odds of landing that barn door halibut necessary for a shot at the greatest fishing derby of all, the "Homer Halibut Fishing Derby". Is there a secret to hooking up with large barn door size halibut? Well, some seem to think so and I will have to agree that there is a handful of charters that do seem to catch more then their share of the super slabs then the rest. So we will look into why this seems to be true.

Homer Alaska Halibut Fishing

First off, we will need to express the wide availability of various fishing charters in the Homer AK area. There are the smaller 6-pack boats in the 26 to 30 foot range, the medium sized charter boats that cater to parties of 6 to 12 people and the large and spacious purposely designed vessels that compromise the majority of the Homer halibut charter fleet. Each offers plenty of room for fishing and a warm cabin to get in out of any inclement weather. On days when the water is rough, the larger boats are preferred but for the average fishing day, the 6 pack is our choice for smaller groups. We often go fishing in groups of three or four and thus try to hire the entire boat just for our group. This has worked very well for us out of Homer and Ninilchik.

In the past, we have been asked for recommendations on which halibut charter we most prefer out of Homer. To this question, our answer has always been the same, recommending one charter over another is one of those places we don’t care to go, and here’s why. Over the past years we have use the services of a great number of the charters in Homer and have enjoyed great success with each. It might just be true that, on some days, one charter seems to outperform another but on an average it seems to equal itself out.

What we suggest for people to do is to visit the web sites of as many halibut charters as time permits and see how long they have been in business. If the charter is not performing well for their clients, we seldom see them last more then a few years. Also look to find a charter that hasn’t changed ownership in the past few years as this can be a red flag to watch for but does not necessarily mean that they are worse then any of the others. It is just something that could show a potential history worth looking into. Here is a hypothetical situation where this should not raise the red flag.

A local charter operator decides to sell his business after years of service in the halibut charter business. The new owner was the chief charter captain under an owner operator of another successful business. This is actually very common and could mean an owner that is going to go the extra steps to get his business going. It may have the same name as previously as well as the boats and equipment, but the cliental base needs to be retained.