36 July 6- 20, 2018 VOL. 37 • ISS. 15

SALTWATER REPORTS:

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31

HALF MOON BAY cont.

Moon Bay Sport Fishing said,“ We put in 19 limits of a mixed grade of salmon to 22 pounds on Saturday, June 23rd with Dave Maddox of Pleasanton taking the jackpot salmon, and followed this up with 19 more limits on Sunday fishing farther south as the commercial fishermen are loading up locally. The weather has been less than stellar, and we had to hug the coast with the southerly breeze. Earlier in the week, Bob Ingles of the Queen of Hearts found a school of salmon 5 miles south of the harbor where there have been whales and birds working for the past few days, and he put in 20-plus limits. There is a trickling of silver salmon starting to show up, and we released one on both Wednesday and Thursday. They are not a nuisance yet, but you have to know

the difference between a king and a silver. There are salmon all over the place as there are still fish offshore, up near Thornton Beach in 60 feet of water, and also off of Mussel Rock.”

Sherry Ingles of Half Moon Bay Sport Fishing said,“ Captain Smitty on the Riptide posted 16 limits of salmon on Sunday with the Que Sera Sera coming in with 10 fish for 6 anglers, and the two that didn’ t limit chose not to continue fishing. This has been the best salmon season in at least 6 years, and I bet that we have landed more salmon this week than we did on our boats all last year. The hot lures have been Apex or Pro-Troll E Lures in watermelon, flame orange / black dots, or pink haze. The weather has been rough, but the Queen of Hearts went rockfishing on

Big lingcod like these are among the most sought after fish for California coastal anglers.

Photo by CAL KELLOGG, Fish Sniffer Staff. jigs and swimbaits, that’ s

the iconic way to catch lings and that’ s how most of us avid ling anglers want to catch our fish. Pitch that sexy jig up drift, let it sink, start yo yoing it along the bottom and when Mr. Ophiodon Elongatus comes knocking he’ ll do his best to rip the rod from your hands.

There’ s no doubt about it, nothing in the world of bottom fishing compares to the excitement of jigging for lings, but the problem is that jigs don’ t always work. If the water temperature has dropped or is too chilly, if there has been a lot of fishing pressure or if you are fishing shallow water hooking lingcod on artificial baits can be an uphill climb.

I recently read a study conducted in British Columbia, where the lingcod get a lot bigger than they do here in Northern California, but they behave in much the same way as our fish do. Using rods and reels and baits and lures teamed with underwater cameras the researchers observed how lingcod react to various fishing methods.

What the researchers found was that lingcod are the most curious fish living on the rocky reefs. When they lowered a bait, lure or even sinker to the bottom one or more lingcod quickly surrounded the alien visitor. Most of time the lings didn’ t strike, but they gave the offering up close and personal scrutiny.

To coax a strike using an artificial lure even under the best of conditions the lure had to move quickly and erratically. Apparently at times lings like to chase down their prey and at these times a briskly worked jig or swimbait will produce reaction strikes. Yet based on hundreds of observations the researchers concluded that the very best lingcod offering was live bait, followed by dead natural baits, with jigs and swimbaits coming in a distant third.

I’ m an avid jigger and I’ ve written about jigging for lings in the pages of the Fish Sniffer numerous times. Most guys that regularly target lings have a solid selection of jigs and have a thorough understanding of how to employ them. This being the case, I’ m going to steer this discussion to the natural bait side of the isle.

When the going gets tough and it’ s time to break out the live bait or frozen bait the first thing you want to do is put that light responsive jigging rod in the rack. When fishing natural bait for lings, you want a stout rod that has some play in the tip followed up with lots of backbone. The rod should be topped with a rugged reel spooled with braided line in the 65 to 80 pound class.

These anglers shot outside San Francisco Bay with Captain Hayden Mullins on June 19 and scored easy limits of king salmon.

Photo courtesy of DRAGON SPORTFISHING, Emeryville.

While a lingcod rod intended for fishing bait has to be stout, a sensitive tip is also important. When a ling takes your bait, you don’ t want to react immediately. The proper procedure is to let the fish take the rod tip down, then work the reel handle to take up any slack and draw the tip down even more. Only then do you want to thumb the reel and cross the fish’ s eyes.

Before we get into the baits to use, I’ ll go over the proper rig for fishing the baits. Basically you’ ll be using the same type of three way set up that you use for live bait drifting inside and outside San Francisco Bay with one important difference.

Rather than running a 30 pound test leader tipped with a single live bait hook, you’ ll want to employ a“ trap leader” constructed of 50 pound test monofilament.

To set up a trap leader take a 36 inch piece of 50 pound mono and attach a 4 / 0 octopus hook to it using a sliding snell knot. On the end of the leader tie on a 5 / 0 or 6 / 0 4x strong treble hook via a perfection loop knot. The treble is inserted into the tail end of the bait while the octopus is pinned through the bait’ s nose. The sliding snell on the octopus hook allows you to adjust the distance between the two hooks to accommodate baits of various sizes.

The best live baits to employ for lings are sardines and mackerel when you can get them. Pretty much any other small live fish that you can legally use as live bait, including kingfish, large bullheads and sanddabs will work.

If you can’ t get live bait, frozen sardines, mackerel, squid and octopus can be used.

Dead baits, being dead don’ t

Just because you are targeting big lings, that doesn’ t mean you won’ t catch rockfish. The big baits that tempt lingcod are also highly effective for hooking jumbo rockfish too!

Photo by CAL KELLOGG, Fish Sniffer Staff.

When tying bait rigs for lingcod you don’ t want to skimp in terms of hooks size, leader strength or on the quality of the line and hooks you employ. Photo by CAL KELLOGG, Fish Sniffer Staff.

avoid snags. When fishing them you have to account for the length of the leader and keep them 3 to 4 feet off the bottom. If a dead bait drags, at a minimum the bait will get torn up and as often as not the treble hook will find a snag.

A final piece of advice is to use plenty of weight when bait fishing for lings. You want your line as close to vertical as possible. I never use less than a pound and often 20 to 22 ounces of weight to keep my line going straight down.