Pacific halibut
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-10-09
The largest flatfish of the North Pacific, taken on the bottom from boats in deep, tide-swept water — the fish Alaska's charter ports are built around.
Catching Pacific halibut
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
- When
- May–Sept — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 1 place FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: characteristic of this water · From a boat, On a charter
Pacific halibut are the largest of the right-eyed flounders, and the fish a great deal of Alaska's saltwater sport fishing exists for. They lie on or near the bottom over almost any kind of ground on the continental shelf, usually in twenty to a thousand feet of water, and they sometimes swim up off the bottom to feed.
The size is the point and it needs stating carefully. The maximum reported is over eight feet and over five hundred pounds, and FishBase records 258 cm and 363 kg. Those are females: the Alaska Department of Fish and Game says male halibut rarely reach three feet. It also records that halibut have been getting smaller at a given age for decades, for reasons nobody has established, so that by the 2000s a twelve-year-old fish weighed about half what one did in the 1980s.
They move. Mature fish go to deeper offshore water in the autumn to spawn and come back to nearshore feeding grounds in early summer, which is why the sport fishery is a summer one. Juveniles and some adults also migrate generally east and south against the westward drift of the eggs, and a fish tagged in the Bering Sea has been recaught off Oregon. Because of that the whole eastern Pacific population is assessed as one stock.
For an angler this is a boat fishery in deep water and strong tide: bait or a weighted jig on the bottom, heavy enough to stay there, and tackle chosen for a fish that may weigh more than the person holding the rod.
Catching it
How it is caught
Where and when
Where Pacific halibut is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Alaska
1 documented place
- Homer Spit · PortCharacteristic of this water · from a boat, on a charter · around May to September
What these strengths mean
- Characteristic of this water
- This water is strongly identified with this species by the sources that cover it.
The fish
Identification
No photograph of Pacific halibut has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. A photograph is published only once somebody has checked the animal in it against the diagnostic features described on this page.
- Scientific name
- Hippoglossus stenolepis
- Family
- Pleuronectidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- North America, East Asia, Arctic & Subarctic
- A very large, thick-bodied flatfish with both eyes on the right side in virtually every fish; left-eyed halibut are reported at about one in twenty thousand.
- Upper side grey to brown or nearly black, mottled and spotted to match the bottom; underside white.
- The tail is broad and symmetrical with no distinct fork, and the lateral line arches strongly over the pectoral fin.
- The mouth is nearly symmetrical and reaches the middle of the lower eye or beyond. The scales are small and buried, so the skin looks smooth.
- Told from arrowtooth flounder, the usual confusion, by the smooth skin and the strongly arched lateral line: arrowtooth have coarse scales, needle-like teeth and a lateral line that barely curves.
Size
- Typical
- Not given as a figure by the sources read. Males rarely reach 90 cm (3 ft); the large fish are females.
- Large
- 23–135 kg (50–300 lb) is described as common in Lower Cook Inlet
Exceptional: Over 2.4 m and 225 kg (8 ft, 500 lb) reported; FishBase records a maximum of 258 cm, 363 kg and 55 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Long-lived and slow to mature: most males are mature by about eight years and half the females by about twelve, and FishBase records a maximum age of 55 years with low resilience. Larvae begin upright with an eye on each side; the left eye moves to the right side when the larva is about an inch long, and by six months the young fish settle to the bottom in shallow nearshore water.
Most spawning is from November to March at depths of 300 to 1,500 feet. A female releases from a few thousand to several million eggs according to her size, fertilised externally. Eggs hatch after about fifteen days and the larvae drift with deep currents, in the Gulf of Alaska generally westward and sometimes for hundreds of miles from the spawning ground.
Feeding and senses
Plankton in the first year; euphausiids and small fish at one to three years; then increasingly fish. Large halibut eat herring, sand lance, capelin, smelt, pollock, sablefish, cod and rockfish, and also octopus, crabs and clams. That diet is why herring is the usual bait and why octopus, squid and salmon heads are all fished for them.
The agency and FishBase pages read describe what halibut eat and where they lie, not how they find it. What they do establish is behaviour that matters to an angler: a fish that is typically on or near the bottom and sometimes swims up into the water column to feed.
Through the year
Mature fish move to deeper offshore areas in the autumn to spawn and return to nearshore feeding areas in early summer. Most sport harvest is between May and early September, when the weather is fairer and the fish are in shallower water. Whether individual fish return to the same grounds each year is not established.
Distribution
North Pacific: Hokkaido, Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk to the southern Chukchi Sea and Point Camalu, Baja California, Mexico
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
The defining bottom fish of Alaskan sport fishing. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game describes Homer as the self-proclaimed halibut capital of the world, with more sport-caught halibut traditionally landed in the Lower Cook Inlet ports than in the rest of Southcentral Alaska combined, and in the Sitka marine sport fishery most of the halibut harvest was taken aboard charter vessels. It is fished from boats on the drift or at anchor in fifty to two hundred feet near drop-offs, pinnacles and kelp beds, with herring the commonest bait and stout rods carrying heavy line.
Handling and returning
The sources read give no handling instructions for halibut. What they do say bears on it: fish of fifty to three hundred pounds are common, so a fish brought to the boat can be heavier than the angler, and a large one is a matter for the skipper and the right equipment, not for lifting on the line.
Safety and rules
More
Where to go next
Where it lives
- Inshore groundOn or near the bottom of the continental shelf, usually in twenty to a thousand feet.
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Hippoglossus stenolepis.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Hippoglossus stenolepis, assessed 05 November 2020.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game: species profiles, Pacific halibut and Dolly Varden — Alaska Department of Fish and Game (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: Identification including the arrowtooth flounder comparison, size and sex differences, maturity, spawning, larval development, diet, migration and seasonal movement of Pacific halibut.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game: sport fishing by area — Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: How and where halibut are sport-fished in Lower Cook Inlet: the ports, depths, structure, baits, tackle and season.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
How it is caught
Official guidance — 2 connections
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Drift fishing
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says it can be effective to drift or to anchor while fishing for halibut, with heavy weights needed in strong current.
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game: sport fishing by area — Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That it can be effective to drift or to anchor up while fishing for halibut, and that slack tide lets lighter weights hold bottom.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Jigging
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game lists weighted jigs among the things that work for halibut in Lower Cook Inlet and describes anglers jigging for halibut over rocky structure.
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game: sport fishing by area — Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That weighted jigs, alone or combined with bait, are used for halibut in Lower Cook Inlet, and that anglers jigging for halibut also take lingcod.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Official guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Inshore ground
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game places halibut on or near the continental shelf, near the bottom over many kinds of ground.
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game: species profiles, Pacific halibut and Dolly Varden — Alaska Department of Fish and Game (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That Pacific halibut are found on or near the continental shelf, typically near the bottom over a variety of bottom types and usually between 20 and 1,000 feet.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.