Norway - Day 3 (of 6)

Sleep this morning felt more like a blink but still it was easy to get up. The usual chores and jobs were repeated before fuelling up and heading out for our third day afloat. Today's boat rota had Me, Mike and Brian fishing together with Dave, Dale and Ronnie on boat #2.  
There was a strong wind blowing today so we chose to stay close to the islands and target Halibut rather than head out to the deeper plateaus in search of the big cod. 
The fishing was slower today...plenty of wolfies and small cod but the Halibut were playing hard to get. We lost a couple of fish that spat the hooks during the morning before I finally managed to connect with another Halibut just into double figures.

Another slow spell prompted a move to a new spot for a bit of prospecting....the bites here were again few and far between but the hits we did get felt like Halibut. Mike then confirmed it with his first one of the week!....that just leaves Ronnie and Brian to join the 'But' club! Good stuff Mobes - 8lb this one.....

As mike was posing with his fish, I hooked into a definite Halibut that managed to shake itself off after a scrappy 10 second fight. The rest of the drift produced nothing so we headed back to drift the same patch where we both hooked up. Surprisingly this drift and a further 2 in the same area were fruitless and as we sat deciding what to do next we noted that the wind had dropped off quite a bit......a chance to shoot out and fish some deeper water while we had the chance then.
Brian stopped  just short of our destination announcing that he'd found a nice bit of ground he wanted to try sin 90 metres of water. So with that, away went the savage gear eels and out came the pirks. Bites came from the off on our first drift through with cod and a couple of really nice Haddock to 8lb.

I was on my way back down in the middle of the drift when my pirk stopped dead mid water followed by a surging run stripping yards from the reel......Brian and Mike both followed suit - we'd found some proper Coalfish!

We worked out where they were on the drift, shortened up and had fun with fish to 14lb for a while...this mark was named 'the Coal bunker'!

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Before we knew it the day had gone in the blink of an eye, a catch up with the others revealed that they too had had a slow day. Staying in close and concentrating on the Halibut had rewarded them with another two fish bringing the team tally to 16 Halibut at half way!

A slow day compared to the previous but we still managed 4 Halibut and located 'the coal bunker'....weather dependant, it will be due another visit tomorrow!