I'm Armed And Dangerous - Lingcod Prep 2008!

[kutthroatkilla]

This is the kind of weather we want tomorrow:

[kayak chris]

No offense taken. I just wanted to make sure that I was'nt offending you guys. Maybe we're getting too sensitive....

Anyways, here some of my open day arsenal!








I'll be off the Edmonds waterfront at Midnight tonight for the opener. Then I'm off the water until Tuesday, when I'll hit the bait box. I've done the opening weekend in my kayak before and I seem to become a target of "lets see if we can dump that guy fish in the kayak." Fun for the yacht enthusiast, a little nerve racking for me.

Thanks for the guidance on the pics.

[Rollin with Rolland]

nice job!! way to get those pictures up. So you're taking the midnight approach, huh?? I never have, but now that you bring it up i have seen lings move up near shore at night (bioluminescence "trails"). I know what you mean about the yachts, i sometimes have a rowboat out there and i tell you...lots of white knuckles on those oars!!
how does that 80lb treat you?? i can hardly break 40lb when i get snagged, 80lb scares me!! I saw my buddy snap his five foot halibut rod IN-HALF with 80lb power pro, but then again he didn't know proper techniques on snags and heavy line...now that your good on the pics, we better see your catch!!:cheers:

nice work on the traffic cam KTK, i'll have to remember that little trick..

[kevinb]

With all that gear I think it goes up a couple knotches...its not fishing tackle, more like your arsonal. You should retitle the thread... READY FOR WAR!!! Good luck out there guys.

[kutthroatkilla]

No offense taken. I just wanted to make sure that I was'nt offending you guys. Maybe we're getting too sensitive...

Heck I wasn't offended by anything that was written, that's why I was scratchin' my head. This thread has good Ling info for experienced anglers and newbies. Thanks for sharing Rolland and Kayak(I love what you got there).

KTK

[kutthroatkilla]

kayak chris -- are you really going to be out there at 12-1am'ish? Wow, I was thinking maybe 7am. Are you serious? Do they bite at midnight-3am? Have you done well at that time?? Midnight-3AM ?? Hmm...you got me thinking now...

KTK

[A9]

Anyone in early with a limit and report? Pictures?

[Eddie L]

Fished Edmonds pier this morning for an hour and caught a 27 incher on a 6' Storm swim bait. :chef:

[bassmaster123]

Wow that is a lot of stuff....on my trip we only bought about....6 buzz bombs a box of herring and one spool of 17lb test... and we got 1 it had nothing in its stomach! watch up with that?!!!!?

[kutthroatkilla]

Wow that is a lot of stuff....on my trip we only bought about....6 buzz bombs a box of herring and one spool of 17lb test... and we got 1 it had nothing in its stomach! watch up with that?!!!!?

It's been slow of late cause of huge 14+ foot tides. Try in later May and early-June...they tend to run larger (size wise) during the later part of the short May1st-June15th season in Puget Sound. Also look for areas with strong current...lings love strong current, and as hard as it can be to fish, it is where they hangout...they're not like the greenlings and china rockfish who take shelter on leeward side of a rock/island to escape the running current. I've been studying some batho maps of the San Juans and am just drooling looking at some of these amazing reefs...Lawson being one that I love... KTK

[Smalma]

Kutthroatkilla -
I don't believe that Puget Sound ling cod "run" in the sense we normally associate with that term; especially legal size fish.

It is my understanding that after hatching the ling cod larvae are "pelagic" living in the upper portion of the water column. At about 3 inches they "settle" to the bottom. At about 1 year of age and 12 to 14 inches in length they begin migrating towards the rock piles and reefs that we typcially find them on. Once they find such habitat here in the sound they become relatively non-migratory with mature females making seaonal migrations.

The males and females grow at about the same rate until age 2 at which time they are that 18 to 22 inch size. At that size (20 inches) the males typically mature and will spawn. Once the males begin spawning their growth rate slows down compared to the females. The females reach maturity at about 30 inches (age 3 or 4). Once they reach maturity the males tend to be pretty much home bodies staying in relatively shallow water. The females make seasonal migrations moving shallow to spawn (winter/early spring) and move back to deeper waters following the spawn. Our ling seasons are designed to take place after the year's spawn so any in-season "migration" here will be the females move back to deep water post spawn.

As I mentioned the 2 year fish are about 20 inches and we can expect the females and the faster growing males to reach that legal minimum size limit of 26 inches that third year. When we anglers remove harvest a fish from a reef we can't expect that new "legal" fish will move in to replace it. Rather we have to wait for young fish to grow up. It is for this reason that we seem to finding more and more areas appearing to be "fished" out.

I think we sometimes see an "uptick" in late season catch rates not because of a new fish "run" but rather fishing interest seems to drop off and it is my theory that the less pressured fish are more inclined to bite.

Tight lines
Curt

[kutthroatkilla]

I think we sometimes see an "uptick" in late season catch rates not because of a new fish "run" but rather fishing interest seems to drop off and it is my theory that the less pressured fish are more inclined to bite.

Tight lines
Curt

Interesting theory. I'm not seasoned in catching them around the PS, but I've caught well over 300 in my short life span up around Port Hardy, Barkley Sound and Telegraph Cove, B.C. and they seem to all run around 35-65." (10-50 pounds). These fish may behave a little differently than the fish in Puget Sound. I let all my lings go usually in the Sound just because of the low stocks being an issue. Up there we take 30-40 pounders pretty consistently. Also, the tides the first few weeks weren't the best and they look much better later in the season, hence maybe a pickup in catch rates...

KTK