Well, it could have been Frost's son Justin who caught the chicken-sized halibut July 21. They're not sure. Justin was the fisherman who noticed the odd halibut among the rest of the day's catch.

“I thought, 'That's not right,'” he said. “I would have thrown it back.”

When looking at a halibut with the tail end down, a left-handed halibut has its mouth on the left side. When it was about an inch long, the larva's right eye migrated to the left. Biologists call this kind of flatfish “left-eyed,” or sinistral.

For most Pacific halibut, the larva's left eye migrates to its right side, so both eyes wind up being on the right side. The pigment on the right side darkens, and this becomes the top side of the flatfish. This kind of fish is called right-eyed, or dextral.

Two families of flatfish are classified by these characteristics: the Bothidae, or left-eyed flatfish, and the Pleuronectidae, or right-eyed flatfish, which includes the Pacific halibut.

The Frosts caught their left-eyed halibut off the Flat Islands, just south of Nanwalek. Robert Frost, 58, runs Frost's Lip-Ripper Guide Service out of Homer. Justin, 31, said he'd heard of left-handed halibut, but had never seen one.

“I've been looking for one for twelve years,” he said.

Charlie Stock, a biologist in Homer with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said left-handed halibut aren't all that rare, with one or two a year seen by scientists and technicians studying halibut.

“It's a genetic anomaly,” Stock said. “There's nothing fancy about it. It's a quirk of nature.”

Despite its classification, two species of the left-eyed flatfish, the California halibut and fantail sole, are both right-eyed and left-eyed, with about 40 percent of California halibut being right-eyed. For the family of right-eyed flatfish, the starry flounder is the only species with eyes regularly right-eyed and left-eyed.

Justin considered seeing a left-handed halibut a continuation of a stroke of luck. He said last Wednesday he found four 4-leaf clovers. Robert wasn't having a lucky day, though. The anchor line on his 28-foot Raider aluminum boat got hung up, and he lost his anchor.

Even though the little left-handed chicken won't wind up winning the Homer Halibut Derby, it still will become a prize at the Homer Chamber of Commerce. The Frosts donated the rare fish to the chamber, and when mounted, it will be displayed at the visitor center.

“The only bad thing is,” said Justin, “We threw back bigger fish to keep him.”