Sea lion and Halibut

My good friend Chad Hood, who's an expert in Alaskan hunting and fishing, told me a story with good news and bad news. The recent story was a saltwater fishing trip up to Prince of Wales, Alaska. We're targeting halibut and salmon. We were out all day long and we were not getting many bites but we ended up catching one nice halibut about 60 pounds or so, and we even got to use a harpoon on it. We're back at the dock and the fish cleaning stations were all booked up, so we just decided to tie the halibut off and leave it in the water so it didn't get too warm or anything like that. And I actually left. When I came back, the boys looked at me and they said, we got some really bad news for you. And apparently there is a resident big bull sea lion. One of my friends was checking on the halibut and he looked down, and he said he was about 12 inches eye to eye with a big bull sea lion. And that sea lion just ripped that halibut right off the line and proceeded to flop it around and eat it in front of the guys for the next 20 minutes or so. So we went from having a pretty good day to not really having much to show for it because of that dang Sea lion. So Chad, how much did he take? All of it. All. Oh! We had the rope tied through the gills there, and that sea lion just took a big old bite and ripped the whole thing off and proceeded to eat it right in front of them. The old fishing stories about the one that got away.