I Need Help with Halibut Fishing

Hey all, I went fishing in DP harbor yesterday for some halis. We fished for about 5 hours and got nothing but a spotted bay bass. Through the day, we lost about seven halibut! We kept on getting them near the top, and then they would just let go. We would pull up the bait and it would be shredded up until the hook, but their would be no teeth marks near the hook! Does anyone have any tips on how to fish for them and land them. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks guys.

Bballnono

im with you on this one hopefully we get some answers

Hooking the bait by it tail or last fin

ya use a stinger hook or let them eat it more before u set the hook

Me personally I want them to inhale the bait and those are the ones I want to keep because they are usually the bigger ones anyways. If you are determined to land them with live bait you can always use a trap hook. Nose hook them the way you normally wood then from the eyelet of that hook you want to tie another string that is about 6"-7" with a treble in it. Then you jam the treble into the tail end of the bait fish. That way, when they short strike the treble is there.

I don't like dealing with it because the two hooks can turn into a cluster f**k. Especially when trying to unhook an angry hali.

Also, you might just try waiting a little longer and let the hali fully eat the bait before you set the hook.

Ok. We will try the stinger hook next time. I will post if I catch one. Thanks for all of the info!

Bballnono

with live bait it seems like halibut always makes two runs I check to see if the but has the bait by letting the rod tip up feel for the lil head shake and weight ill wait until they run when they do that they always stop and make another run that's when they eat the whole bait that's when I set the hook. I'll have my drag set loose by the way oh yeah and my baits are always nosed hook to keep them more lively and looks more natural when your dragging them across the bottom

wow very useful tips! thanks for the tips!

x2 on the Stinger hook.

I like a reverse dropper loop setup that way, when I go to tie on my hook (using a Palomar knot) instead of trimming off the tag end of the line, I'll just use that end of the line as the line for the stinger.