Tegan And The Mermaid – To Fish a Mermaid

Many of you may have seen or heard the story in the news paper, the Tonight Show, or on Yahoo News about the little six year old girl “Tegan” on one of our boats this last week that was fishing for a mermaid. While she didn’t catch a mermaid she did catch a 138 pound halibut, large enough to lead the women’s division of the Homer Halibut Derby. Not bad for a 40 pound girl. There were many positive responses to the story as well as some negative ones. Most of the negative responses were involving the shooting of the big halibut before bringing it onboard. Unfortunately the news paper reported that the halibut was shot with a sawed off shot gun, rather than a stubby store bought model. I think the real problem is that most people don’t understand the reason behind shooting big halibut before bringing them on board. And that lack of understanding fuels their comments. Why do charter boat captains shoot big halibut anyway?