On windy days they feed on the surface.
Their eyes are on the top of their heads and the swim below the surface. When they see something above them they leap out of the water to catch it.
Because their eyes are on the top of their heads they have to flip over to see where their prey is and it exposes their white bellies.
On windy days you see a lot of white things on the surface of the sea. It's halibut feeding on the surface.
Or so I was told once. I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday so I knew it was a crock.
Once when I lived in Kodiak someone wanted to hire a pilot and airplane to spot herring. He took out an ad of sorts on the local radio station. The announcer misread the ad and said, halibut spotter instead of herring spotter. Then he corrected himself by saying that he believed the person was looking for a herring spotter.
I was sitting with a couple of the guys doing gear work and we were listening to the radio. One of the guys jumped up and snapped "Wait here and listen to the radio!" and took off like a shot.
There was a phone booth nearby and he ran to it and called the radio station and explained that the person looking for the spotter was probably looking for a halibut spotter and explained the windy day feeding habits of the big, flat soakers.
The announcer got the call and asked my friend if he would explain things on the air.
He agreed and much to the laughter of most of the town, there was my friend Blaine, booming over the airwaves. He explained that halibut were surface feeds on windy days and so on. He had the announcer totally buffaloed and fascinated.
"Thank you," said the announcer after my pal had finished. "I never knew that." This added to our already side splitting laughter.
For the next month Blaine never had to buy his own beer.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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