13lb Lincod, Salmon Season Closure

We went fishing on fishing on Sunday and had a great trip. We decided to fish out of the Half Moon Bay marina. Normally this time of year we would be Salmon fishing, but as many of you know the Salmon season has been closed for 2008 off the coast of California for both Recreational and Commercial fisherman. The closure was done to help reverse the catastrophic disappearance of the King Salmon population. So instead of Salmon fishing we went out in hopes of catching Lingcod, Halibut and rock fish. See the video at the bottom for some of the action.

We left Tracy at around 4:45am, got gas and headed to the Half Moon Bay Harbor to launch my Dads 21ft Wellcraft fishing vessel. I towed his boat with my 03 Dodge Cummins to help cover fuel expenses. We launched his boat and headed out in search of anchovies, hoping to net or catch some live bait. No luck. The bait just wasn’t thick enough apparently. There was a recent and mysterious die-off of Anchovies at Half Moon Bay recently that you can read more about here. There is a Video here as well. Some theories as to the die off include depleted oxygen and methane gas that is created when they die. I heard the stench was pretty bad for a while in the Harbor. The birds enjoyed it I am sure. I guess the bait goes in the Harbor entrance and doesn’t know how to come out so more and more come in and the rest is history. At any rate we headed out without fresh bait.

Since we can’t fish for Salmon we were targeting Lingcod, Halibut and rockfish. The weather conditions were ideal. We started the day with high fog, very little wind and just a 1 or 2 foot swell. We headed out and north towards the fleet and started fishing near the south end of what I believe is Montara St Beach. We were able to go in closer then usual due to the excellent sea conditions. We drifted and slow trolled over sand and eventually some rocks. There were no Halibut to be found, but we manage to catch what turned out to be a personal best Lingcod trip.

The best bait I know of for catching big Lingcod is Squid. You can buy it by the box in your local grocery store. I used a two hook rig consisting of a single hook followed by a treble hook. Although this rig can increase the snag potential it did well in catch rate for me. It wasn’t long before I hooked into a large Lingcod. He turned out to weigh in at almost 13lbs. Not bad for the 1^st fish in the boat. He would have been more, but he decided to upchuck two small octopuses which together must have weighed at least a pound. It is common for Lingcod to do this. We love it cause we know whatever they upchuck might be able to be used as bait assuming it is in relatively good condition. I know this sounds gross, but this is exactly what I did and it paid off. We managed to catch at least one or two more Lingcod on the two Octopus that the 1^st one gave up.

We also used large sardines which are a favorite of Halibut. We didn’t find the Halibut, but Rock fish like them two. We boated several small rock fish and the largest Cabazon I have seen. We ended the day with 6 Lings, one Cabazon, and 5 small rock cod split 4 ways. We ate the Cabazon that night and I think it might have been the best rock fish I have ever had. We also heard of one guy that limited on Cabazon. I wish I knew where he was fishing.

I also had what must have been a shark on my line. Although we never saw it, based on its behavior, it must have been a shark. The speed at which the line came of my line was just to fast, smooth and long to be anything else. He immediately took my line towards and around a rock and almost took all the line off my spool. I had braided line or it would have snapped in an instant on the rock. We managed to back the boat up enough to get off the rock. I had a ton of line to real up and although it felt like I still had something on my line eventually things went limp. The line broke off at the knot. Wish I could have seen what it was. It wouldn’t have been the 1^st time we have hooked up on shark in this area so that must be what it was. On a previous trip years ago we lost several shark and but managed to bring two of them near the boat that weighed in at around 60lbs each. Species is unknown, but could have been a Brown Smoothhound or something similar.