Also known as Northern Halibut, Right-Eye Flounder, Barn Door (for the giants), Chicken Halibut (for the small ones). Bait, technique, tide windows, and where the bite is on right now.
Pacific Halibut — The barn-door flatfish of the cold Pacific gravel. Also called Northern Halibut, Right-Eye Flounder, Barn Door (for the giants), Chicken Halibut (for the small ones).
Pacific Halibut is also known as: Northern Halibut, Right-Eye Flounder, Barn Door (for the giants), Chicken Halibut (for the small ones). The barn-door flatfish of the cold Pacific gravel.
Regional names can confuse anglers and cause misidentification. The table of common names below covers the most-used alternatives across Australia, New Zealand and the US:
Key to correct identification: check the regulations-authority species sheet for your state or territory before keeping any fish — minimum legal sizes, bag limits and identification guides are published by each fisheries department and are the authoritative source.
Hero spots in our coverage where Pacific Halibut is in season for June. Click through for the live forecast.
Out of season across our covered spots in June.
Halibut sit flat on deep gravel, sand, and mud flats — often 150 to 400-plus feet down — so this is a bottom game with heavy gear. Run a stout conventional outfit (a 6/0-class reel or a low-speed two-speed loaded with 80-130 lb braid) and a circle hook in the 12/0-16/0 range; let the fish load up and turn before you come tight rather than swinging on the first tap. Anchor or drift the edges of structure — the lip of a gravel bank, a slough mouth, the seam where a flat drops into a channel. Bounce a leadhead swimbait or knife jig so it ticks bottom on every drop, then reel up a foot or two so you're swimming just over the gravel. Bait soaks best on a spreader or sliding-sinker rig with enough lead to hold flat in the current. When a big "barn door" comes up, get a harpoon, gaff, or shark hook in it before it's anywhere near the boat — a green halibut over the rail can wreck a deck and a leg.
Fish the slower water around the slack — the hour either side of the tide change — when your lead actually holds bottom and the bait sits flat instead of streaming. The first push of new current after slack often turns the bite on as it gets the scent moving across the flat. Big spring tides scour too hard to hold bottom mid-flood or mid-ebb without a brick of lead, so plan your best soaks for the softer water.
The bigger water around the new and full moons means stronger tidal flow — you'll want heavier lead and tighter timing to the slack to keep a bait pinned to the gravel. The softer neap tides between the moons fish easier all day and let you stay on the bottom without an anchor-chain of weight.
Pacific halibut are managed under a short, annually-set season (IPHC/federal framework) with area quotas, and state-water and federal rules differ — there are size, retention, and gear restrictions, and Pacific-groundfish depth/area closures can affect where you can fish. Seasons and limits are set fresh each year, so confirm the current open dates, areas, and rules with your state fish-and-wildlife agency before you head out.
US state size & bag limits for Pacific Halibut: CA · OR · WA-US
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