Lingcod

[ripdog]

Anybody out there willing to share their tricks and tips for catching this badass fish? I'm into my final quarter at the U of Washington and am doing my senior project in the San Juan Islands. In the next three weeks I have to catch and pump the stomachs of as many lings as possible. This means fishing 6 or so hours of fishing each day. Sucky final quarter, eh? I can't believe I'm getting it for free (stipend) and college credit as well. The vast majority of the lingcod will be returned to their homes after the gastric lavage procedure and a possible digestion rate study. Thanks for any tips.

[Ray Zee]

some people look like their pets and some look like the fish they catch. dont you make that mistake here.

[M2d]

Hey Ripdog,
you fishing from boat or shore? what type of terrain?

[Ed I]

lingcod cheeks are great eating

[M2d]

I used to think that too, until I had my first cabazon. That is one good eating fish (and the shore season opens on saturday)

[slavic]

Afraid I'm not much help here. When I use to fish with grandpa we used an old crank phone mounted under the back bench of the boat. I'd crank and grandpa and the local JP would do the "fishin" and "drinkin".

[M2d]

for lack of more information, here are some tips for shore based lingcod fishing

look for areas around rocks with deep water access. Jetty's are good places to look becausue they provide the rocky substrate and the quick access to deep channels that lings love. Other good places are rocky shorelines with deep water nearby.
Lings will eat anything. kinda lick a prehistoric largemouth bass. For bait, any live bait will do. catch a small rock cod, hook him up and send him back out. sand dabs work wonders as well, if fished in sandy channels near the rocks.
For dead bait, squid (usually whole to weed out the rock cod and perch that can fit squid strips in their mouths), octopus, and fish work well. one thing I like to do is work a jetty slowly with a fly-lined frozen anchovy. hook it through the eyes (put a small, 1.8th" piece of rubber band on the hook to keep it from sliding off) with a small split shot a couple of feet up from the hook. Then lob it out off the jetty into the deeper water and let it sink. retrieve it sloooooooowly. Work straight out, and parallel to the rocks. Lings are actually cruisers when they're feeding, and have their own territorys to patrol. A ling (hungry ling is redundant) will eventually come across your offering and slam it.

For lures, most bass lures, worked slowly, will work (this is only for shore based fishing, so I won't get into irons). try to choose something bulky like a rubber grub, or the classic jig-n-pig. stay with the darker colors usually. purples tend to do well because of the color (ROY G BIV), but olives, browns and blacks work as well. Swimbaits, spoons and other lures will catch fish if worked slowly enough. Lings tend to be ambush predators, preferring to corner their prey against rocks rather than chasing it down in open water.

For flys, big, dark, bulky offerings worked deep are the way to go. LC 13 for deep (10 feet plus) water and type 4 for shallower. hand over hand strips, bringing the fly in with constant movement works best. for some reason, they don't seem to like total stop and go retrieves. flutters and falls are fine, but complete stops turn them off.

hope this helps.

[ripdog]

Sorry for the delay in responding--massively busy. Right after posting this thread, I went out and got 6 lings. These are beautiful fish. I'm fishing from a boat, looking for rocky shelves about 100 feet deep. Lingcod season opened up last weekend, so anything near legal size is most likely fished out already. I'd like to get a range of sizes from small to huge. I got a 28 incher on Friday morning, but I have to keep the legal ones for 30 days after I catch them, so that could be problematic. I don't want too many big guys crowding my tank and cannibalizing the small ones. After working so closely with these things, I might have a hard time killing and eating one now. We'll see about that soon.