Ling Cod

[JKEEN33]

Skillet, do you guys catch the big, big lings?  We have never had luck with the 30 plus pounders, we've tried to fish with smaller greenling as bait but it just never works.

We get some pretty nice lings as a byproduct of halibut. Once we drift over the soft bottom halibut hole and get into the rocky bottom we keep drifting and pick up the longs. 4' is not uncommon. We catch them on our homemade pipe jigs.

[JKEEN33]

This post is about the minimal amount of meat on the small lings. Myself agree and would rather have no ling than have to clean a small one with nothing but head and bone on it.

[trophyhunt]

Thanks guys, good info.  My largest was 25 to 30 lbs, great fight and better eating! 

[Wetwoodshunter]

Skillet, you have a great question and I hope that I can give you and others some perspective on minimum size limits. Biologically the minimum size limits for groundfish are put in place in order to protect the juvenile fish and allow them a chance to reach spawning potential. Lingcod is currently one of the healthiest stocks on the west coast and this is surprising since it was recently declared overfished in 2002 and rebuilt in 2005. Lingcod have an extremely high growth rate and the bulk of the population lives deeper than the 120’ depth restrictions that are in place for Washington for the majority of the fishing season. Lingcod also have a seasonal migration where they come in the shallower water to spawn and protect there eggs and then go deeper later in the year. I believe but am not 100% sure this is one of the reasons that WDFW has the sport fishery starting mid April as the females start to travel to deeper water in order to help protect the spawning stock.

I assume that removing the minimum size limit on will have no effect on the stock. Localized depletion may be a different story, I was talking to a charter fishermen a few days ago that said that when they changed the size limit to 22” all he started seeing were 21.5” fish. Well aside from the seasonal migration lingcod don’t move around that much and live on rocky pinnacles if the majority of the fishing pressure is on a single area that area will get fished out quickly. A great example of this is “the wreck” in Neah Bay right out from snow creek. Last year as I was fishing I assumed 200-300 lingcod per day opening weekend were coming off that single spot, its no wonder if you tried to fish it the next week you would probably only find barely sublegal lingcod.
 
Lingcod is an interesting species because the fisheries in Washington, Oregon and California are not managed in a way to take the full potential that the stock can handle. Since other bycatch of concern mainly yelloweye rockfish can be caught while fishing for lingcod the bag limits for lingcod are actually made with more consideration for yelloweye than for lingcod. Currently all three states use almost the entire allocation of yelloweye and if we did not have yelloweye as a bycatch concern we could easily see a 3-4 lingcod bag limit in the sport fisheries in Washington regardless of minimum size since total groundfish catch is measured in metric tons and not number of fish. The main difference here is since groundfish is measured in metric tons 2000 20” fish may equal 600 30” fish as far as catch accounting goes so by harvesting smaller fish you are taking more individuals out of the water to achieve the quota. But remember, due to yelloweye we come nowhere near to the lingcod quota so this is a moot point with this stock so the size limit could be removed without ill effects.

If this doesn't make sense or makes more questions let me know.

[sumpnz]

Wetwoodshunter - By that logic, since YE is almost exclusively at >120' (but not quite), would it make sense to open up a sub-season at <80' (or whatever pretty much guarantees no YE) with an expanded ling cod limit of, say, 4 per day?  If they wanted to reduce black/blue rockfish pressure that would occur as a result of additional effort for lings they could just keep the (now) 9 bottom fish overall limit. 

[Wetwoodshunter]

Under a localized depleation scenario you are very likely to see the size of fish drop when the size limit is lowered. So typically fishing pressure is highest closer to port. If you had a 22" size limit everything under it would be released since the limit is removed more fish may be taken from those areas. Fishermen have the ability to take smaller fish and some will, while the larger fish are still being taken. So in a particular fishing hole instead of 500 fish removed you could argue those same 500 will be removed plus an additional 200 smaller ones. But as the majority of the stock is untouchable for most of the season it will still be healthy, but maybe not in your fishing hole.

[Wetwoodshunter]

Wetwoodshunter - By that logic, since YE is almost exclusively at >120' (but not quite), would it make sense to open up a sub-season at <80' (or whatever pretty much guarantees no YE) with an expanded ling cod limit of, say, 4 per day?  If they wanted to reduce black/blue rockfish pressure that would occur as a result of additional effort for lings they could just keep the (now) 9 bottom fish overall limit.

This is a great point and I think you could do it. The release mortality of rockfish gets better as you go shallower (less dead fish) so you would get an additional savings from that too.

[Scvette]

I commercial fish in the Bering sea,but on occasion we go to the gulf and fish cod fish,there's a spot on the south end of Kodiak we fish that is loaded with huge lingcod,I'm talking 60+++" lings. There are no sport boats that go down there cause it's too far from the town. I set 74000 hooks everyday so when we are over there I see a lot of them. I'm sure if someone went sport fishing there they could get a new state record,I remember one we got,I'd bet it was 80# easily. I'm going over there as I'm typing this,not sure if I will go to the south end of Kodiak,but if I do I'll get some pictures of the large ones and post them here.

[sumpnz]

I commercial fish in the Bering sea,but on occasion we go to the gulf and fish cod fish,there's a spot on the south end of Kodiak we fish that is loaded with huge lingcod,I'm talking 60+++" lings. There are no sport boats that go down there cause it's too far from the town. I set 74000 hooks everyday so when we are over there I see a lot of them. I'm sure if someone went sport fishing there they could get a new state record,I remember one we got,I'd bet it was 80# easily. I'm going over there as I'm typing this,not sure if I will go to the south end of Kodiak,but if I do I'll get some pictures of the large ones and post them here.

Is there a market for those lings?  If not do you try to release them back to the water?  I would hope so if you can't/don't sell them.  Lings that big are supposed to be prolific breeding females.

[Scvette]

I commercial fish in the Bering sea,but on occasion we go to the gulf and fish cod fish,there's a spot on the south end of Kodiak we fish that is loaded with huge lingcod,I'm talking 60+++" lings. There are no sport boats that go down there cause it's too far from the town. I set 74000 hooks everyday so when we are over there I see a lot of them. I'm sure if someone went sport fishing there they could get a new state record,I remember one we got,I'd bet it was 80# easily. I'm going over there as I'm typing this,not sure if I will go to the south end of Kodiak,but if I do I'll get some pictures of the large ones and post them here.

Is there a market for those lings?  If not do you try to release them back to the water?  I would hope so if you can't/don't sell them.  Lings that big are supposed to be prolific breeding females.

We release them right away,unless my government observer is out taking his talley,if he is we have to give him 5 so he can weigh and measure them.......oh and sex them so they are killed. We don't put them up commercially though.

[Bullkllr]

When my buddy guided in Kodiak, he had a ridiculous ling spot. We'd take clients there if we were in the area (pretty long run from town). It was a pretty small spot, but every drift we ever did over it, every line down would hook up with a 30-50 pound ling. He'd let people who wanted to keep 1- the rest got reeled in then slack-lined so the barbless leadhead jigs would slip out.

[Boss .300 winmag]

Hhhhmmmm Water World size lings. 

[Bullkllr]

Hhhhmmmm Water World size lings. 

They get that big around here.
Most just get picked off before they get the chance. In the old days before bottomfish were much sought after, lings that size were actually pretty common.

[Da stump]

This post is about the minimal amount of meat on the small lings. Myself agree and would rather have no ling than have to clean a small one with nothing but head and bone on it.

[Skillet]

WSFW just posted new regulations for lings in area's 1-4. There is no minimum limit now. I personally think this is totally wrong. Ling are a big fish and when taken young they don;t have as much meat or the fantastic fight. With any ling being able to be taken it will not be long and we won't have any.
Dale

This post is about the minimal amount of meat on the small lings. Myself agree and would rather have no ling than have to clean a small one with nothing but head and bone on it.

To be clear, I am not taking issue with the statement about yield of small fish. Nobody is making anybody keep smaller lings.  I am questioning the statement "with any ling being able to be taken it won't be long and we won't have any."