SoCal Lingcod Solo Mission
 

My Sunday was free, but the usual crew could not make it on the water with me, so I went out solo. On the water by 5:30AM. Racked up some good karma by helping a pier fisherman retrieve an LED bobber that he had lost, then started looking for bait. Bait was tough to find, so I worked the shallows a bit with a luckycraft and came up with a stray bonito. Conditions were sloppy with the mix of windswell from the morning offshore flow. Eventually found bait in the form of some XL greenback and headed out past the 50-fathom curve. Very first drop on one of my spots resulted in exactly what I was looking for. Nice lingcod came in at 31". Started making my way back in around 8:30AM. Conditions cleaned up nicely so I worked some shallower spots on the way and found the sandbass were on the chew. Got 4 decent ones on the jig and released them all. Headed back in, had the truck loaded and was on my way home with some fresh ice in the killbag by 11:00AM. After so many long days out there, it's nice to have a day where everything goes exactly to plan. Got what I was looking for and wrapped up much earlier than expected!

Oh, and I found a random baseball too. Sign from the universe it was a home run?

Congrats on the nice Lingcod and the release of the Sandbass. Looks like a great meal!

Nice! What a way to enjoy your day.

Nice ling, I've been wanting to catch one of those from the kayak for a long time. Nice sand bass too, did it get snagged?

What did you do with the head? Lately I've been collecting the jaws from the fish I catch, so far I have halibut, sand bass, calico and sheepshead.

Congrats! Great photos!

Those are fun fish to catch

@FISH11- Thanks man!

@daperrin- I almost slept in instead... glad I didn't haha

@PapaDave- Thanks! And good eye, yes that one did get snagged. Fortunately it was under the gill so hopefully it has a chance to heal up. And my girlfriend always takes the head and collars and uses them to make a soup base for hot pot. Lingcod is her absolute favorite! The last ling I caught was about 6 inches bigger and I really wish I kept the head to make a skull/jaw mount, but I just don't have any space at my home to do that kind of thing unfortunately. But it's nice to know that so much of the fish is going to good use at least.

@JohnMckroidJr- Thanks John! With all the great photos you've been posting, I'm glad I was able to post something YOU could enjoy for a change haha

@jorluivil- Agreed. Most important part of the fight is the first 10 seconds and making sure they can't make it back into the rocks and lock themselves in! :reeling:

HaHa, Yes, I miss SoCal, and can live it vicariously through your photos -- Thanks.

That's awesome, good to know the lings are still around the canyon

What a great day on the water! Nice catches!

Thanks! Not a bad way to cap off a pretty good year :cheers1: