Lingcod season is just around the corner and I am going to try to find one this year on the fly. I found a couple last year with a buddy of mine, but we were using gear. I'm building a new head for my 8 wt and tying up some big ugly flies. Last year chartreuse was a great color for Rockfish and Lingcod, so I'll start there.
I don't know much about this fishery, so I figured I'd start this thread.
Fish pics, flies, techniques... anything Lingcod related.
The 16 lb leader with a heavy bite guard is by far the best way, since it controls where you will break off on snags. When I was using straight 30#, I lost the loop, and entire leader on bad snags. Pretty frustrating and time consuming to re-rig. Fish were breaking me off (16 lb) too easily on breakwater rocks, so I had to beef it up.
And as Curt said, you'll be waiting until May 1st with the rest of us. I think you've got to head to the Pacific for open bottom fishing.
Got way ahead of myself, didn't I? Step 1: Check the freakin' season. I don't know why I assumed.
Thanks so much for the help, fellers. Glad to find out now rather than when I was at the local tackle shop all jazzed to be headed out.
Reconsidering, I wonder if there's anything else I could fish for on Orcas Island with either a 6 or 10wt and no boat? Hm.
just wondering if anyone has tried out the Rio Leviathan lines for Lings? An anonymous fly shop guy suggested it to me, but as it's a tropical line, I'm a little skeptical. Anyone used these lines?
just wondering if anyone has tried out the Rio Leviathan lines for Lings? An anonymous fly shop guy suggested it to me, but as it's a tropical line, I'm a little skeptical. Anyone used these lines?
Have not tried that line but usually try to stay clear of the warm water lines for around here. They will coil up like a son of a gun. I picked up the rio coldwater striper line 550 grains of awesomeness with an intermediate running line. Works great on my 12 wt.
i would recommend using a RIO Clear intermediate running line matched with 30' of either T-14 or T-17. A system like this lets you fish lighter heads if you need to like during salmon seasons on smaller rod weights. It also allows you to quickly change from T-14 to T-17 if the current and/or wind picks up. I haven't found the need for anything heavier than T-17
The integrated lines are very nice but I like the flexibility of changing heads if I need to.
Coldwater Striper or Depthfinder or Big Game. I would be skeptical of the Leviathan too, it's a warmwater line with a core designed to be limp at tropical-type temps, not cold Pacific temps.
I have a 18' tiderunner and would be happy to hook up with someone if they know what they're doing. I've never fished Lings but am a pretty good learner.
Fished 11/13 area today
Windy no lings
Caught a nice copper rockfish on gear
That striper line casts great but with winds at 15 -20 I'm messy
Good luck out there
I was catching lings in 70 feet of water out in the ocean last weekend with my 550 grain Rio coldwater striper line. Even with fairly windy conditions, including during a small craft advisory yesterday, its just all about boat control so you can get down to where they live.
Lots of good info in this thread. I may have an opportunity to target lings before things close down.
Quick question, besides saltwater Yak hair, what other synthetics have you found work well for ling patterns?
Thanks for your input.
SF
Those flies are awesome. I landed a ton of lings this weekend to 35 lbs out off the coast on heavy gear rods. My first time tangling with them. It was fun, especially when they would latch on to the sea bass we had already hooked. We landed many that were simply latched on to the hooked bass. Crazy aggressive fish! Someday I'd love to chase them on the fly.
This was my first year fishing for lings on the fly. I've been trying to find information about what to do with little luck. This is the best thread I've found and applied some of the knowledge, plus a little experimentation of my own. The fishing gods must be throwing me a bone because I've done pretty well this year and have caught 5 lings in 3 outings (boat maximum applied here folks). Perhaps it was because the steelhead gods cursed my existence in the winter. Biggest ling was 36" on the nose at 20lbs. Here's the set-up...
7 weight tip flex Orvis Access (too light; finally broke today after hauling in a couple monsters; moving to 8 or 9)
Orvis Streamer Stripper integrated line (10' of Type V at the tip)
1/4 oz weight (double ended barrels; cheating here to sink enough)
5-6 feet of 20lbs floro
Personal super-klausers like Capt Nate's from Caddis Fly Shop (video up top)
Technique:
12'-15' of water
Tide moving between 2-4 knots (fishing 1 hour incoming/ outgoing and slack)
Throw a down current cast
Stack mend 4-5 times to get a good deal of line out
Line is 45 degrees in the water and close to the bottom
Long strips into the current to get the fly moving across the bottom and coming up naturally (I think that's natural)
Not sure if it's cool to put on a weight to get it down there, but it seems like it creates something tasty for those monsters to hit. Chartreuse and black have been the, hands-down, winner. Give it at shot. Curious if you can get the same results and would love to hear feedback. Cheers!
pic of flies below...
Well, I tried to get a ling on the fly yesterday on a bottom fish trip out of Garibaldi OR. Unfortunately I got a bit over zealous stack mending the 600 grain Leviathan line and it became one with the reef in 80 feet of water. I'm almost wondering if something did eat the fly and line wrapped me when it returned to it's lair. The fly was a 10" monstrosity of magnum bunny strips in black and white, a dozen strands of lateral scale for flash, and super hair in red and purple for some color. All lashed to an 8/0 octopus circle hook with an epoxied pearl-braid head with the biggest 3D eyes I had (I'm almost as pissed about losing the fly!).
WARNING! GEAR REPORT:
We ended up catching a nice batch of lings and black rockfish. The biggest lings we got to the boat were maybe 12lbs but we lost a few good ones. I hooked a beast first thing in the morning that actually pinned me to the rail using my tuna jig rod, which isn't a flimsy stick by any means. Actually kind of scared me! Good thing I had a solid grip since I had the drag set on the tight side. Man, I had forgotten what bulldogs lings can be - holy crap!
The majority of the rock fish were decent sized blacks, including a few in the 5 pound range. We went out deeper for a while searching for bigger lings and caught a few canaries on the shrimp flies we were running above the jigs. After learning how to use a descender release device (pretty cool gizmo) I cut the flies off and concentrated on lings. We also caught a number of good sized cabezon but unfortunately they are currently off limits. We also caught a tiger rockfish (pretty cool, 1st one I've seen), a yellowtail (rockfish), a china, and an irish lord.
Also saw some encouraging signs for a great ling season next year, or even maybe later this summer/fall when we got into a area where we couldn't keep small lings off our lines (18 to 24-ish inches).
BTW, I was using this shank squid pattern in combo with a heavy jig trying for lings when it hooked my biggest rockfish of the day.
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