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Ling Cod 2017

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cod ling
17K views 180 replies 30 participants last post by  mtskibum16 
#1 ·
Anyone make it out for the opener today or planning to soon? Post up some flies you're using, gear, technique tips, pictures of fish you caught, etc here. I have yet to target lings on the fly, but I'd love to go if anyone ever has an open seat!
 
#48 ·
What size "unweighted" flies? :)

An 8/0 hook weighs 58gr while a 2/0 hook with 1/8 oz of lead [emoji15] weighs 56gr.



By unweighted I mean no extra weight is added to the fly. I tie my lingcod flies on hooks from 6/0 to 10/0. Most of my flies are neutrally buoyant. This reduces snags and the fish can not resist a fly the hovers in one spot between strips.
 
#53 ·
I have some ideas for this weekend. I'll have to see how it goes. It would be easy to hit up all the spots with a boat, but they're a bit spread out for a kayak attack. Partly depends on if my buddy wants to join me for SRC or not. I'd be out there for sure if I had a boat.
 
#56 ·
Good ling fishing in the Juans this past weekend on gear, but nearly all came from deeper compared to past years. 80-120 feet on the edges of spots where in the past we've found keepers and many smaller fish up in 30-60 feet. Because of this the fly rods never left the case, something I plan to change tomorrow.

Could have to do with finding most fish deeper, but they are big this year! 4 oversized and several keepers just under 36".

Mellow tides helped compared to past openers, but almost all fish were still in the window from an hour before tide change through slack. Curious if others had similar experiences with the fish being deeper.

44" about to head back to make babies


Perfect 35" keeper


A few of these guys around too. Enough for some meals but nowhere near limits.
 
#61 ·
So basic fly. I'm thinking something like Lou posted. Basically a big clouser-ish fly maybe with a stacked dubbing head. Maybe some weighed some not. What size and style of hooks? Like 4/0? I like the idea of cheap(ish) regular gear hooks. I tied some needle fish for 'cuda on some big ol' siwash hooks from Sportsman's that actually looked pretty nice.
I use the mustad 4/0 circle streamer hooks exclusively. Ling fly fishing has gotten trendy lately so you won't see me post much about it anymore, but that's my advise as far as hooks that I've given out on here before
 
#62 · (Edited)
Whether it's in my head or not I feel more confident in larger hooks, and can't see any advantage to going smaller. And really I'm not too interested in trying to pull smaller hooks out of a toothy mouth.

I've hooked a lot of lings on size 2 clousers, but I haven't landed very many of them. Except when catching small ones in the kelp beds..
I've caught well over 50 lings on the fly ranging in size up to 30 lbs. Never had any issues, but then again I exclusively use circle streamer hooks.
 
#63 ·
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here? I have landed plenty of lings on the fly. My whole post was that I feel more confident in larger hooks. I was saying I've hooked plenty on smaller hooks, but haven't landed very many of those particular fish.

And I really don't see fly fishing for lings as becoming trendy in the least.

Once
 
#64 ·
There are way more people targeting lings on the fly these days than there were 6 years ago.

With circle hooks, the hook ends up in the corner of the mouth every time. Easy hook removal. My go to is a 4/0 circle streamer hook.


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#65 ·
There are way more people targeting lings on the fly these days than there were 6 years ago.

With circle hooks, the hook ends up in the corner of the mouth every time. Easy hook removal. My go to is a 4/0 circle streamer hook.
There's way more guys on the beach and floating rivers too. There are just way more people fly fishing because it has become trendy. Ling fishing is way to difficult to become too trendy. By difficult I mean you need a boat, specialized gear, short season, bad weather, tons of water, etc. People are lazy and I think you need to worry about gear guys sore lipping all the lings way more than fly fisherman.

Thanks for the recommendation on hooks though. Like all things, there's more than one way to do something successfully. I've never used circle hooks so I can't really debate the pros and cons.
 
#71 ·
I agree with the others
There's just too much to ling fishing to ever cause it to blow up. Sure the popular spots that can be hit with a small boat, kayak, or paddle board will get hit a bit harder, but there is just so much more to it than that. Doesn't concern me in the least. Hell how many guys from this thread have made it out a day or two this season? And how many fly caught ling pics have been posted here?

If you're consistently out fishing guys who are using live bait then they are terrible lingcod fisherman. I love to fly fish for lings, and have caught a good deal more than 50 myself, but I promise you give me a bait tank with a few greenling and a gear rod and there's not a fly fisherman on the planet who could keep up consistently. Certainly not bragging, but there is just nothing that tops live greenling. Even flounder, while not as productive as greenling in my opinion, is still quite deadly. There's an art to fishing live bait, it's not as simple as some people like to think.

I have had days at places like Possession around slack when I've caught fish on flies when no one else is catching them but I always attributed that to showing them something different than the half dead, drug around for two hours flounder that most guys are fishing.
 
#72 ·
If you're consistently out fishing guys who are using live bait then they are terrible lingcod fisherman. I love to fly fish for lings, and have caught a good deal more than 50 myself, but I promise you give me a bait tank with a few greenling and a gear rod and there's not a fly fisherman on the planet who could keep up consistently. Certainly not bragging, but there is just nothing that tops live greenling. Even flounder, while not as productive as greenling in my opinion, is still quite deadly. There's an art to fishing live bait, it's not as simple as some people like to think.
Yup. I agree there are many situations when a fly might be better than a jig or even dead bait. The hovering, fluttering action can be killer up against rock walls, cliffs, breakwaters, etc. But live greenling is on a whole different level.

Maybe a dozen times over the years, we've fished productive spots with flies, jigs or mooched horse herring (which almost always outproduces the previous two) to no success or only undersized fish, before dropping a live greenling and immediately hooking into a big ling. It's incredible how they will key into well-fished live bait even when nothing else is working.

No lings on the fly this weekend. A few on gear though a lot slower than earlier in the month.
 
#80 ·
I've caught them deep myself, but I catch them much more consistently in shallower water. My normal setup is a 10 wt with the Rio Intouch Striper 450 grain with a 3o ft sink tip. When I want to go deep I do what you do and go with a 12 wt, intermediate running line and a heavy full sink shooting head
 
#82 ·
That live octopus story highlights exactly why I can see live bait not always working better than dead. If the strike zone is small with inactive fish, the live bait may never enter that zone because it swims away from danger. A fly knows nothing of such danger and swims along cluelessly. :)

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#83 ·
That live octopus story highlights exactly why I can see live bait not always working better than dead. If the strike zone is small with inactive fish, the live bait may never enter that zone because it swims away from danger. A fly knows nothing of such danger and swims along cluelessly. :)

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I don't think the strike zone of a ling cod is small. They're such voracious predators they'll chase just about anything, anywhere.

It's common that ling fishermen will hook a rockfish, crank the rocky up to nearly the surface and see a huge ling cod mouth right behind the rockfish!

I've caught a number of lings in that type of scenario!
 
#85 ·
I've got a question knowing nothing about the lingcod fishery other than what I've read here. If you wanted to chase these guys from a paddleboard or kayak...obviously in a not too exposed area...how would you know how deep the water is where you were fishing to avoid getting snagged on the bottom which would seem to spell disaster. If you did get snagged then how, or could you even, salvage your line?
 
#86 ·
Make sure to have a break section in your leader so you don't lose the whole line. If the line core/backing is 20-30lb, make sure your break section is less than that.
 
#89 ·
MB, have you live bait fished for lings before?

I'm not understanding why you're under the impression that live bait is in the zone less, and I'm guessing perhaps its because you've never done it and are comparing it to live bait fishing you've done elsewhere.

The way most fish live bait for lings, there is no real chance for the bait to swim out of the zone. A heavy lead is used to keep the bait just up off the bottom with a short leader. This is dropped down and more or less just kept right up off the bottom as the boat drifts as slowly as possible. Not sure how any cast fly is going to be in the zone longer than this.

My challenge stands to any and all... I'll fish live greenling and you can fish flies or any other method of artificial lures for that matter, in water of any depth of your choosing.... then we'll compare results. There is not a doubt in my mind what the results will be.

Live bait flat out out fishes any and all methods of fishing for lings. Period.

On our last halibut day, Sunday, we got our butts in one drift and headed in to fish deep water lings. The spot we fished was around 600' deep. At these depths we almost always use pipe jigs for lings, but this area had been hit hard over the halibut season and the fish were getting tougher. We only needed a few fish to have our limit but it was taking way too long. We had made six or seven drifts over the same ridge and had only picked up a couple fish. We had two beat up, but still alive flounder in our tank from the day before so I rigged up one rod for live bait and dropped it down. We got our last 3 fish on that rod in about 15 minutes. Even at those depths where anything that moves gets eaten, live bait outshines everything.

This is absolutely not a dig towards anyone's skill as a fly fisher, it's just the way it is. I love to fly fish for lings as much as anyone, but I've also done more live bait fishing for them than most and it truly is the most effective method.
 
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