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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend June 8, 2006 This fish tale rivals the epics for its wild odyssey Outdoors By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune PORT ORFORD — When the 15-pound Pacific halibut flopped onto skipper Mike Lottis’ charter boat May 20, he almost overlooked the wiry tag dangling from its mouth. At 30 inches, the fish was too small for Yreka, Calif., angler Ken Jackson to keep, so Lottis jotted down the information on the tag before returning him to the sea. "Homer Halibut Derby, 2003," the tag read, along with the numbers "535." "It was smaller than the halibut we were catching so there was no reason to kill it," says Lottis, 57, of Gold Beach. Later, out of curiosity, he called Homer, Alaska. And with that, the fish became something special. Advertisement While it may not match the mythic standard of the ancient Greek poet’s "Iliad," the odyssey of one wayward Alaskan flatfish is an epic journey that’s as rare as readers of a fishing column getting through anything written by Homer. Jackson’s halibut was a "tag" fish, worth $500 from the Homer, Alaska, Chamber of Commerce. It was caught, tagged and released three years ago as part of the town’s summer fishing derby fundraiser. But unlike other halibut, which are often caught years later within 10 miles of where they were released, this little gotta-be-me halibut pumped his flat fin at least 1,655 miles from his old Homer haunts before he got hooked. The fish’s appearance off the Southern Oregon coast is making big news among Homer’s 4,000 residents and the 3,000 other people who live in what passes (in Alaska) for its suburbs. "It’s a very big surprise and it’s been tossed around a lot here," says Linda Winters, the derby coordinator in Homer. "Both our little newspapers and both our radio stations had it on. "We’ve had reports of our fish getting caught here or there and people bring the tags in," Winters says. "But we’ve never had a phone call from that far away." A phone call to Tracy Geernaert at the International Pacific Halibut Commission confirmed that, occasionally, a fish named for a horse’s face can get on its horse and cover some serious water during its potentially lengthy lifespan. Halibuts’ longest journeys usually are from shallow waters to 1,000-foot-deep spawning grounds off the continental shelf, says Geernaert, the Seattle-based IPHC’s survey coordinator and former halibut-tagging supervisor. A halibut caught and tagged in Alaska would normally be in Alaska — not following Highway 101 due west of Southern Oregon’s cranberry bogs. "Every once in a while you get these juvenile fish that take these great long migrations," Geernaert says. Usually a halibut tagged off Central Oregon or Westport, Wash. (a halibut research hot-spot) ends up caught in Alaska, Geernaert says. "To get one going the other way? I’d say it’s unusual," she says. It’s fitting that Pacific halibut and Homer and Port Orford all came together in this particular fish. Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis , were named in 1904 from the Greek hippos (horse), glossa (tongue), steno (narrow), lepis (scale). The fish has become big business in the rural community of Homer, where as many as 17,000 anglers pay $10 a day to take part in a derby. Historically, it was the biggest fund-raiser for the little town that was named for mining pioneer Homer Pennock, not the ancient Greek bard who spun tales about Greeks at war and their long trip home. Homer, located near the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, was too far south for a stop of the Iditarod Trail but big enough for a real highway linking it to the popular salmon-fishing town of Kenai to its north. "It’s not rural by Alaska standards," Winters says. "But it’s rural by Medford standards." By any standards, halibut are large fish that are fun to catch and even more pleasurable to eat, whether caught in Alaska or Oregon. That was what drove Ken and Jen Jackson to Port Orford on May 20, where they dropped $200 apiece for a day’s worth of halibut fishing in Lottis’ charter boat. "My wife and I fish a lot," Jackson says. "But halibut was one kind of fishing we hadn’t done." They picked a good day. May 20 was one of those pre-selected days where halibut fishing was legal in waters deeper than 40 fathoms, where the halibut tend to be more plentiful and larger. Pacific halibut have been known to grow more than 8 feet long and weigh up to 500 pounds. Males and females have been documented to live as long as 55 years. On the east side of the Pacific, their range is from Nome, Alaska to Santa Barbara, Calif. Southern Oregon never was known as a halibut hot-spot. The central Oregon coast generally has earned that moniker, chiefly because of access to deep-water reefs off Newport that are halibut magnets. Southern Oregon does sport a few good places for the halibut, and Lottis took the Jacksons to perhaps the best: the Bandon High Spot, a plateau of rocks 26 miles from Port Orford that draws feeding halibut from nearby deep water. Once there, the Jacksons jigged a standard rig for halibut: a sardine with a hoochi skirt. The action came quickly. Jackson, a 48-year-old high-school maintenance man in Yreka, caught and released four halibut, culling his catch for a fish at least 20 pounds. For that, he had the IPHC and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to thank. In previous years, halibut anglers were required to keep their first halibut of legal size, usually 32 inches long. The new limit of one halibut kept a day, with no size restrictions, allowed Jackson to release his first four halibut and earn his 15 minutes of fame in Alaska. Homer Halibut Derby fish No. 535 whacked the sardine and hoochi in 425 feet of water. Once on deck, its provenance was almost overlooked, Lottis says. With four anglers battling fish, Lottis barely had time to notice the tag, he says. Instantly, Lottis knew this fish was different. "(Lottis) was pretty excited about it," Jackson says. "I thought it was pretty neat, too. But at the time I didn’t realize what a deal it was." Lottis jotted down the information, later learning the fish had grown seven inches during its three-year journey. It went overboard with a purpose. "We left the tag in it, in case someone else catches it some day," Lottis says. Geernaert says that probably won’t happen. "The likelihood of that halibut getting caught again," Geernaert says, "is pretty low." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail This fish tale rivals the epics for its wild odyssey ">[email protected] . 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