Barn Doors of the Sea

In Monty Python’s sketch “Fish License,” John Cleese, trying to buy a fish license for his pet halibut, extols, “I chose him out of thousands—the others were all too flat.” It stuck in my head: Not only was it wildly funny, the name of the halibut in question was Eric. At the time, I knew virtually nothing about halibut, but I already liked it.

The Pacific halibut’s life begins as one of perhaps 500,000 eggs produced by a single female fish. After hatching, the larvae start out swimming vertically, like salmon. When they reach about an inch in length, the left eye migrates over the nose of the fish and onto the right side. At six months old, they settle to the bottom of the sea and start swimming horizontally.

This weird-looking evolutionary adaptation, coupled with a mottled brown camouflage pattern on their topside, allows halibut to lurk on the seafloor, their primary habitat, where they are stealthy predators. When they do venture up from the bottom, their white underbelly allows them to appear part of the ocean surface to those below that would prey on them.

Nicknamed “barn doors” by fishermen, the kite-shaped Pacific halibut are flatfish, a category that includes sole and flounder. The Latin name is Hippoglossus stenolepis, a reference to “narrow scales shaped like a horse’s tongue.” Halibut can live 50 years, and although males rarely get over 100 pounds, females can grow to 500 pounds and seven feet in length. Nowadays, fish this size are rare. Most commercially caught halibut average 30 pounds and measure roughly three feet in length, putting them at about 15 years old.

The word halibut comes from 13th century Middle English: Haly referred to the Catholic Holy Days, and butte described the flat appearance of the Atlantic halibut; hence, a flatfish that could be eaten on holy days. However, halibut themselves aren’t picky eaters—if it moves, they’re interested. When that voracious appetite meets the work of experienced commercial fishermen like John McHenry, the result is a lot of halibut fillets.

John McHenry is the owner and captain of the Seymour, a Ballard-based halibut boat that was built in 1913. He’s a member of the Fishing Vessels Owners Association, an organization that represents halibut fishermen, with the shared mission to “promote safety at sea, ensure competitive pricing, and promote habitat-friendly gear with minimum bycatch.” (Bycatch are fish caught by accident.)

Halibut fishermen realize that conservation is the key to their livelihood. To McHenry, who’s equally conversant in the theoretical aspects of preserving a fishery and the practicalities of commercial fishing, halibut are a renewable yet sensitive resource.

“These are very green times, and a lot of those green notions are good,” he says. One of those notions is the Marine Stewardship Council’s certification of Pacific halibut as an environmentally friendly and well-managed fishery. Another is the “Best Choices” designation from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program. The Pacific halibut is now one of the healthiest fisheries in the world, and it is currently completely sustainable. But it wasn’t always so.

Day of Infamy

September 20, 1888, was a day of infamy for the Pacific halibut. Prior to that, the fish was caught on a small scale for local markets. That Thursday afternoon, the fishing schooner Oscar and Hattie returned to port with 50,000 pounds of halibut packed on ice, and those fish were shipped from Tacoma to Boston on the newly transcontinental Northern Pacific Railway. The Pacific Halibut had hit the big time—the Eastern fish markets had nearly depleted the Atlantic halibut fishery by then and embraced this new source.

That embrace kept tightening, growing more deadly over the years. It wasn’t until after World War I that the fishermen and processors of the Northwest fishing industry noticed that catches were in rapid decline and, in an amazing example of farsighted conservation, petitioned both the Canadian and U.S. governments to come up with a regulatory solution to save the Pacific halibut fishery. The result, in 1923, was the International Pacific Halibut Commission. According to Bruce Leaman, director of the IPHC, “Right from the get-go, there was a really strong sense of communication between the industry and the commission. But the biggest thing, I think, is just the whole idea that the industry takes a long-term view of the resource, which is not common in the fishing industry.”

Based in the University of Washington’s School of Fisheries, the IPHC manages the eastern Pacific halibut fishery, which extends from Monterey Bay, California, northward along the continental shelf around the Aleutian Islands and into the Bering Sea. Based on the research of its Canadian and American marine biologists, every winter the IPHC evaluates the halibut biomass and the previous year’s catch, determining how much halibut can be caught the next year from all sources—commercial fishing, sport fishing, the North American Indian catch and bycatch. This number is usually from 15 to 20 percent of the biomass. In 2006, the total catch was a sustainable 67 million pounds (16 percent of the biomass), or approximately 2.5 million fish.

Showing more innovative management, the IPHC abandoned the traditional “derby fishery”—still common in other fisheries—wherein boats have mere hours to catch an entire year’s worth of fish. Instead, individual fishing quotas (IFQs) were set, allowing each boat a percentage of the total catch for the season. The boat captains choose when to go out and how long to stay out fishing; they have all season, from March through November, to make their quota. The results are dramatic: better safety and profitability for fishermen, and fresh halibut nearly year-round for consumers.

Tasting the Fish

So how does a halibut find its way from the seafloor to a dinner plate?

It starts in the cold Alaskan predawn. Daytime fishing is only partially for the benefit of the fishermen; it’s primarily to avoid the attack of the sand flea, a small crustacean that feeds at night. When halibut are caught, it may be hours before the fishing line is pulled up to the surface, and all that time they are at the mercy of other predators. If that wait is overnight, sand fleas can strip a fish down to its bones, which would make neither McHenry nor his halibut very happy.

McHenry and his crew set out longlines that consist of an anchor at each end of a four-mile-long fishing line, with baited hooks every ten feet. Buoys tied to each anchor mark their position on the surface. They’re left to “soak” for a few hours, and then the process of hauling the lines back up begins. There’s no way of knowing how successful a day has been until the last hook has been pulled aboard. Finding halibut isn’t a sure thing. Experience will tell a captain where the fish are likely to be, but it’s luck that gets a halibut to take the bait.

After the halibut are hauled aboard, they are bled to ensure good-tasting flesh. Then, for IPHC research, they are measured, and the otolith—a circular bone in the ear that regulates balance—is removed. The otolith grows a ring each year, like a tree trunk, and biologists count the rings to determine a halibut’s age. The fish are then cleaned, placed in the hold, and packed in crushed ice. Ideally, the time from here to your plate is as short as possible.

Fresh halibut is only available from March through November; during the winter, it is all frozen. To find high-quality halibut, you can (like Cleese) “choose one out of thousands,” but you’ll want to look for glistening, translucent flesh with no chalkiness and a clean scent. Getting to know trustworthy fishmongers is key.

Seattle is blessed with several of these, including the Wild Salmon Seafood Market in Fishermen’s Terminal in Ballard, Mutual Fish Co. on Rainier Avenue South and Northern Fish Products in Tacoma. Among the supermarkets, Central Market in Shoreline and Whole Foods in Seattle and Bellevue are good choices.

For 85 years, we have been fortunate to have one of the world’s best-managed fisheries in our backyard. And though there are more glamorous fish in the Pacific Northwest, few are as versatile or as delicious as the Pacific halibut. Or as funny, licensed or not.

Eric Chastain has lived in Seattle since 1997. He worked in the specialty coffee and tea industry for eight years, with a particular focus on roasting, blending and tasting of coffees. As an exuberant amateur cook, he cultivates a continuing love affair with spices, distilled liquors and local foods. The evidence of this licit affair resides in his overflowing pantry.

Find our recipe for halibut with red pepper salsa here.