Fish Tale -- 410-Pound Halibut Didn't Get Away

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A grandma halibut close to the size of the door of a bank's walk-in vault has been pulled from the waters of Cook Inlet by a Washington state angler.

The 410-pound behemoth, caught Tuesday, fell only 30 pounds short of an Alaska record that has stood since 1978.

Fishing guide Mel Erickson of Soldotna joked that he and angler Don Thompson of Tacoma considered stuffing the monster with cod to push it over the record but decided that would be unethical.

Erickson, however, figures the halibut lost about 10 pounds in blood and water between the time it was hooked at 7 p.m. and the time it was weighed in at Ninilchik two hours later.

Still it remained a monster - a halibut too big to fit in the bed of a standard pickup. It measured 8 feet, 2 inches long and 4 feet, 1 inch wide, Erickson said.

Thompson could not be reached for comment. Visiting the Kenai Peninsula on a low-budget vacation, he has been staying at various campgrounds, Erickson said.

It was left for the guide from Alaska Game Fisher to provide the play by play. He was more than happy to oblige.

"We started fishing about 4:30 in the first spot," Erickson said. After about an hour, Erickson, Thompson and the latter's nephew - Walt Thompson - had boated four small halibut. The guide then decided to move his 24-foot boat.

"We went out to 222 feet of water, about 18 miles off the beach," Erickson said. They had been there about 15 minutes when the

first fish hit. It turned out to be a halibut of about 50 pounds.

"Then this other rod went down and line started screaming down," Erickson said. "Then she made a run toward the boat. After that she was pretty easy to get in. She was probably dying of old age or something.

"She just came up like a big sheet of plywood, basically," he said. "It really didn't take that long to get in. It might have been even less than a half-hour."

Thompson ended up with more than 200 pounds of filets and a great big fish story.

The state record halibut is a 440-pounder caught in 1978 by Joar Savland in Icy Strait, near the entrance to Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska.