Best Bait and Lures for Halibut Fishing on Vancouver Island

Salmon Bellies

Salmon belly is the go-to halibut bait in Barkley Sound, and for good reason. Halibut are strongly attracted to salmon scent, and the white belly meat is soft enough that fish can bite into it easily while the tough skin holds everything on the hook. To rig a belly strip, puncture the skin side first with a circle hook, then push through the flesh and back out through the skin for a double thread. Rigged properly, it takes a knife to get it off the hook. Any part of the salmon works, but belly strips cut fresh on the day produce the best scent trail.

Salmon Heads

One of the quiet satisfactions of a multi-species trip at Eagle Nook is that very little goes to waste. The salmon you bring in one day becomes bait for the halibut you’re after the next. Salmon heads and scraps that would otherwise be discarded go straight back to work in the water, which feels about right on a coast where the whole ecosystem runs on salmon. The strong scent travels well in deep water and pulls halibut in from a distance. Stick to smaller heads from Coho, Chinook, or Pink salmon. If the head is too big, fish can nibble without ever clamping down on the hook. To rig, pierce the snout through both upper and lower lip with a sharpened circle hook, essentially sewing the mouth closed so the head stays put on the retrieve. 

Herring

Herring is reliable, widely available, and halibut take it readily. Large herring are most effective, though the cost adds up quickly when you’re going through a lot of it. The main challenge is durability. Herring is a soft fish and gets picked apart by incidental species on the way down. To get around this, brine your herring in pure salt for a day or two before the trip to firm up the flesh, or contain it in a bait bag. When using whole herring as live bait, hook through the mouth or nose and let it swim.

Squid

Squid works particularly well when targeting larger halibut. Use it fresh or frozen, whole or in pieces. It’s softer than salmon and more vulnerable to being stripped on the way down, so use two hooks in tandem and add a wrap of thread or dental floss around the bait for reinforcement. The scent profile is different from salmon, which can be worth switching to when halibut seem to be ignoring your primary offering. 

Octopus

Octopus has a tough, rubbery texture that stays on the hook well and holds up through multiple drifts. It’s not as easy to source as salmon or herring, but it performs consistently. Hook through the tentacles near the body so it doesn’t pull free, and double-hook as you would a salmon belly. Keep pieces to a manageable size. Tentacle sections longer than 8 to 10 inches invite nibbling without a proper hookset.

Bait Bags

For softer baits like herring or chopped fish scraps, a homemade bait bag solves the durability problem. Ball up the bait inside a piece of nylon mesh or a cut-up produce bag from the grocery store, tie it off with thread to about golf ball size, and drop it down as you would any other bait. Bait bags work in both deep and shallow water and can be frozen in advance for later use.

Other Natural Baits Worth Trying

Halibut are opportunistic feeders and will take a wide variety of baits. Pacific mackerel, grey cod, anchovies, sardines, clam necks, shrimp, and prawns all work. The three things that matter regardless of what you’re using: the bait needs to be rigged securely, it needs to put out a strong scent trail, and your line needs to be weighted enough to reach the bottom with the bait intact. If you’re losing bait to crabs, dogfish, snails, or starfish on the way down, add more weight and get there faster.

Pro tip: Not connecting with larger fish? Move up to a slightly bigger circle hook and switch to salmon heads. Bigger bait tends to filter out smaller fish.

Halibut Lures

Halibut respond more to scent than to visual flash. Spoons and flashers on their own are generally not recommended, as the fast, erratic movement tends to spook fish rather than attract them. The lures that work best are either weighted for bottom contact, designed to move subtly, or both. Most work best in combination with a piece of natural bait.

Jigs

A weighted jig is the most versatile halibut lure. The lead weight gets you to the bottom quickly and the hook is molded into the body, making it easy to add a strip of bait for scent. Many jig bodies are covered in soft rubber or silicone and feature an artificial head with a tail or skirt designed to suggest a small fish or squid. Jig vertically along the bottom: drop to depth, lift the rod sharply, let it fall, repeat. The irregular motion and scent combination is effective in deeper water where drift fishing can be harder to control.

Rite Angle Fishing Products and Gibbs Delta both make solid halibut jigs. Specific options worth starting with:

Rite Angle:

• Double Glow Mexican Flag
• Halibut Spin N Glow White
• Double Glow Pink Skirt

Gibbs Delta:

• Mud Raker
• Jigalu
• Big Eye Glow Jig
• Bio X Scent

Artificial Squid

Soft-bodied artificial squid lures are larger and more detailed than the small rubber hoochies (soft plastic squid-style skirt lures) commonly used in salmon fishing. Options include soft iron squid lures that closely mimic the appearance of real squid, and Fat Squids, which are palm-sized soft plastic lures that glow in low-light conditions. Because the goal is to imitate natural squid movement, presentation matters: work these slowly and naturally rather than aggressively. They perform best when combined with scent. 

Pro tip: Seal your artificial squid in a Ziploc bag with a piece of your natural bait for 20 to 30 minutes before the trip. The absorbed scent makes a significant difference.

Berkley PowerBait Grubs

Eight-inch PowerBait Grubs are an effective and practical halibut lure. The scent is built into the soft plastic body, and the crescent-shaped tail produces just enough movement to attract halibut without creating the erratic action that puts them off. They come in over a dozen colours and are biodegradable. Use them near the bottom on a weighted jig head. 

From Our Guides: What We’ve Learned About Bait in Barkley Sound

Do not underestimate the difference freshness makes when it comes to halibut bait. We cut bait the morning of every trip. A strip of belly from a fresh-processed salmon puts out a completely different scent trail than something that’s been frozen and thawed overnight. When you’re fishing 200 feet down and relying on scent to pull fish in, that difference is massive. 

Guests sometimes arrive with a strong preference for one bait type because it worked somewhere else. We’ll try it, but we also adjust based on what we’re seeing on the sounder and how fish have been responding earlier in the week. Some days herring outperforms everything; other days the octopus is the only thing getting bites. There’s no single answer that holds all season.

The most common rigging mistake we see is bait that’s too loosely hooked. A sloppy rig that spins or slides up the line on the drop means you often arrive at depth with nothing on your hook. We spend time on rigging before every trip because it matters as much as bait selection.