Description
Halibut are not necessarily a pretty fish, however they are quite tasty. Halibut is a very popular fish for subsistence, sport, and commercial fishing in Alaska. The are a large flatfish. Dark smooth skin (scales) with a mottled specked complexion, with usually an white underbelly or more correctly underside. Being flat fish they swim sideways (light side down). Eye are almost always found on the right (darker) side. However it is believed that somewhere around 1 in 20,000 are reverse. They can grow to be over 8 feet long and weight more than 500 pounds in Alaska. Making them one of the largest ray-finned fish.
Breeding & Development
Male Halibut usually aren't mature enough to reproduce until around 8 years, females around 13-14 years. Large females can drop up to several million eggs, males come by and drop their DNA over them. Eggs hatch about two weeks later.
When halibut hatch they look like normal fish with one eye on each side, they even swim like an average fish. When they're around an inch in length their left eye starts to drift over until it's on the right side of the body. That screws with the halibut psychologically cause they think they're swimming sideways so when they go to correct it they start swimming sideways for real. Ok so we made that last part about fish psychology up. As they begin to swim sideways they color in the left beings to fade. Unless they're one of those "special" halibut, then it's all in reverse.
Males top out at around 3ft long. Though this has changed over time, they used to be smaller, until around Y2K (2000) when they reached their length apex, they are now progressively becoming shorter. No one is sure why. Females get big, as previously noted they can reach 8ft those ones drop millions of eggs too. So if you're hauling in a trophy halibut keep in mind you could be removing the equivalent of 6 averaged sized females from the breeding cycle. Just food for thought, inversely if you choose to real them in you got a lot of yummy fish. The oldest Halibut recorded was 55 years old.
Diet & Habitat
Halibut prefer to stay along the continental shelf and if you didn't know they're strictly a salt water fish. They're often found in depths 20-1,000 ft (3.5-170 fathoms) and prefer water in the range of 37-46°F. They're found all along Alaska up to the middle Seward Peninsula.
In summer halibut tend to feed in shallower waters, moving deeper in winter. Halibut feed on cod, turbot, pollock, octopus, crab, and shrimp, while sometimes even snacking on salmon.