Woke up early so I can have enough time to fish the tasty flounder for Mr. Lingcod, but when I arrived to the flounder spot I had a really hard time locating fish. Looking west on the water I noticed that people are already hitting the lingcod holes, so after 10 min I gave up on live bait and went plan B: salted whole and cut plug herring
Beautiful day, with no wind or waves it was perfect for fishing the bar. After about 2 hours the only fish I hooked it was a rockfish that was safely released. By 7:30 or 8 am possession was cover with boats, never seen so many. Boats were fishing so close to each other you could see the barbless hooks in the boat next to yours. By that time nobody seem to be hooking any lings but suddenly fish decided to bite. And then everybody was catching fish, left and right fish after fish. I changed my setup a bit and I started hooking fish also. My first ling didn’t want to stretch enough to be 26 so I had to release it. My second third and forth fish were released also, and then the bite died. Boats started heading back and I thought “I can’t believe I’m not getting a ling today.” Right after the thought I had a solid “snag” that started moving and slowly coming up. It was about 34-35 inches. I was afraid it would be too big but it was perfect. I got it on a 2oz jig with a plastic lure. Headed back home around 9 am. Tight lines.