[PerryC]

MG,
Were you trolling with live bait at Cabrillo? The smelts you catch off the fishing pier there used to do really good for the hali's. They're alot hardier than the dines you buy plus they are one of the halibuts native forage fish there which never hurts. The dines we used to get there never lasted that long whereas a smelt will last for a few hours, and even if it gets raked it will still be trying to swim. Before they dredged the inside there was alot of kelp by shore that had bass and you could usually catch a hali with live bait. I dunno how it is there now a days though, sometimes a year or two can make a big difference in the fishing. TC&TL,
Perry