Ryan Ballantine caught this 15.5 pound lingcod on a squid-tipped shrimp fly at Elephant today. The boat had three limits of rockcod and was back just after noon, with plenty of time to clean the pile of fish. The rockcod have been pretty bitey lately and the lings, some of them pretty big, are here to party.
It looks like Gage isn't the only one catching halibut. Mike Mack sent in this report from today: "Caught 6 keeper halibuts at McClures on live bait in morning until about hour after tide turned. Plenty of lings and rocks off elephant in 120'." Mr. Mack also watched another boat catch a pair of halibut and a striper. The water is still cold, but luckily some of these halibut don't read this report and don't know that they aren't supposed to bite in 53º water. Poor illiterate bastards. Let's teach them that literacy matters.
5 comments:
Wow! There's some nice fish in those waters!
Thanks for pointing out that these coho are endangered. The guy in the pic could use some pointers on handling these fragile fish.
AD Biller. What is wrong with the way he’s handling the fish? He took the hook out while the fish was in the water in the net and then released it immediately on the other side of the boat. I snapped a picture as he was transferring it. That fish swam away very quickly straight to the bottom. It was a good catch and release. How would you have done it differently?
Other Dude
-@AD, don’t leave us hanging, let’s hear your pointers! I’m the dude holding the fish and I’m aware the ideal scenario is the fish never leaves the water, you gently remove the barbless hook, and see them swim away asap. Not easily done when using a halibut rig but we did our best. Posting photos educates us all, I’m not convinced that wasn’t a steelhead in that it’s mouth was totally white. I’ve never met a steelhead in person and the few cohos I’ve seen landed get flipped off so quickly I can’t claim to know them well either. Properly Identifying fish isn’t always easy so the hope is to keep the dialogue and info flowing. This link has me thinking it was a steelhead- https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/russian-river-salmon-steelhead/russian-river-learning-center/salmonid-identification , thanks for any input.
FYI The Dude and I did leave the bay better than we found it that day. During a drift we snagged on a lost crab pot and line(no buoy). We hauled it up and kept it on our small boat in order to dispose of it properly and prevent others from losing fish and gear. Happy and safe fishing to all.
Netting and handling is what jumped out at me, big no-nos for salmon and halibut alike. It's a shame not many anglers use barbless hooks for all species. It would simplify releasing any undersized or otherwise protected fish, making their chances of survival much higher.
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