texgun, I too will be fishing in Alaska for Halibut, booked a fishing trip out of Skagway for next tuesday, hope to have better luck this time then I did a couple of years ago out of Juneau. Then we fished out of a 21' boat with a bit of a chop it was a hard days fishing, I did manage to catch 2 that were about 12"long, so as you see there not all barndoors, the fishing can get tiring, let your line to the bottom,250' deep, with a 3# weight, get a bite, miss it reel it all back up to see if they got the bait, put more bait on lower it back down, before long, doing that alot, and you get tired. But theres always that chance for a good one. saw one taken on a boat not far from ours that was about 50#s. Good Luck hope you have a great trip.