good luck!
I have some fishing to do. Planning on the first trip later this week.
The tags issued are your allocation for the season. More rules about the state waters halibut fishery can be found at https://www.maine.gov/dmr/science-research/species/halibut/documents/DMRHalibutComplianceGuide%202021.pdfIt's a little murky, but you have to keep in mind that these requirements apply to the state waters only, EXCEPT that if you are fishing in federal waters, OUTSIDE the state fishery you still need halibut tags to legally land the fish in Maine.
Did anybody get a halibut ?
When there out of wood they are hard to eat!!!!
Correct. Now that the state season is over if we want to fish we need to get a federal hand gear B permit (Free) and only allowed 1 per trip. That also needs to be tagged with the state tags shown. I did reach out to DMR and asked them why the recreational season did not go longer then the commercial season. There would be a few taking advantage of this fishery if they could stay up inside during the good weather months. The reply i got was the normal BS about over fishing blah blah. And I say that because recreational fishing for halibut with rod and reel or handline would have little or no impact on the stocks as success rate is quite slimm.