Northwest Fishing Reports

Hi everyone, I am new to fishing for lings and I wanted to see if anyone had some advice on the basics to fill a tackle box for fishing for lings this summer. I will be fishing out of the deception pass area and I have fished for lings in the past when I lived in Oregon but it was always using a "6 grub with about 10oz of weight and that was it. I hear guys talk about using live bait here and sand dabs? is this a fairly common and effective way to fish them? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!

I picked a few of these up at Auburn Sports & Marine last season..... I Only went for lings one time down at Toliva Shoal and didnt have any luck, but I dont think anyone was catching fish that day.

I plan on trying them out at Neah Bay and San Juans this season. Should do much better in those marine areas.

But, i think catching sand dabs and using them as live bait would work best.

http://www.hogylures.com/sand-dab-softbait" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks! I will definitely check these out. I found something similar on amazon that I was looking at but they are only 3 inches. Seems small to me.

catch sand dabs no larger than the side of your your hand, send them down, crank up a little bit of line, and hold on. are you fishing from a boat or pier?

I am fishing from a boat. Are there any jigs or basic tackle that you recommend other than sand dabs? Once again thank you for the help everyone!

Ive caught them on homemade pipe jigs, leadhead jigs with large curly tail plastics or swim type baits or herring, a regular salmon mooching setup with herring - alive or dead, and with live sand dabs and with live kelp greenling and one when it grabbed onto a medium sized black rockfish as my brother was reeling it in and the stupid thing refused to let go until it was netted.

If they are there, they tend to be very aggressive.

Larry3215 wrote:Ive caught them on homemade pipe jigs, leadhead jigs with large curly tail plastics or swim type baits or herring, a regular salmon mooching setup with herring - alive or dead, and with live sand dabs and with live kelp greenling and one when it grabbed onto a medium sized black rockfish as my brother was reeling it in and the stupid thing refused to let go until it was netted.

If they are there, they tend to be very aggressive.

I had that happen just outside Neah Bay! Quite a shocker! The black rock fish just had a few teeth marks, both were quite delicious.

Bodofish wrote:

Larry3215 wrote:Ive caught them on homemade pipe jigs, leadhead jigs with large curly tail plastics or swim type baits or herring, a regular salmon mooching setup with herring - alive or dead, and with live sand dabs and with live kelp greenling and one when it grabbed onto a medium sized black rockfish as my brother was reeling it in and the stupid thing refused to let go until it was netted.

If they are there, they tend to be very aggressive.

I had that happen just outside Neah Bay! Quite a shocker! The black rock fish just had a few teeth marks, both were quite delicious.

Ha! Thats where we were too. Just on the outside of Waadah Island near those underwater columns. It was our first trip to Neah. Many moons ago....

Hahaha!!!!! Now that is either scary or just plain funny! That is the exact spot! We had just bagged our kings for the day, there's a hole they lay in right there. Three passes, three kings. Everyone around us was just slack jawed and then we pulled a 20+ pound ling with a black rock on the hook. We had several people cruise up and ask if we were using Sea Bass for bait. 1oz jig with a white curly. gotta love it!!!

Thanks again everyone for the help. I got some basic swimtail jigs and some sand dab rigs for live bait. I also picked up half a dozen saltwater Gulps to run. I am still looking for some other options so if anyone has any other suggestions I greatly appreciate it.

1oz jigs with curly trail grubs in white, champagne or chartreuse. My favorite though is live bait. To catch live bait I use a herring rig which consists of multiple extremely tiny hooks all pretied on a leader. The bait I am after are shiner perch or poagies as some call them. I use a two hook set up and to hook the bait I just use the hook through the upper lip so not to kill the fish and leave the trailing hook dangling. Drop that down until it hits bottom and crank it up 2 turns. Let it sit and hold on. Caught dozens of lingcods this way while others were struggling

Awesome! I picked up some Sabiki rigs to catch poagies. I am going to be checking out some new swim baits and the Hogy Flounder jigs as well.

Just run leadheads and curly tail grubs in the 7" or 9" Size. Brown/gold flake is the best color. You can but those grubs for like .50$ a pop, just grab a whole bunch of them and some lead heads. I use primarily 6 Oz'ers but I carry 4's, 6's, 8's and 10's in my box. We run 8's and 10's if we're fishing right in the strong current, 4's and 6's if its slower and shallower.

A box of lead heads and curly tails is absolutely all you need to put fish in your boat out of the launch you are considering.


I caught this 50+ Incher just last season on this very setup!

Awesome Fish Matt! I actually have a few of those 4 oz rootbeer Jigs, I guess I will have to pick up a few more. now that I am looking at Lingcod I am afraid I may have gotten in over my head with the Halibut gear I am picking up as well. ha, it never ends I guess.

Any recommendations on where to find some lings in the South puget sound from a kayak? Also open to pier fishing in the area. Plan on heading to the Westport jetty in the next few weeks if the weather can cooperate.
Really appreciate the help of the people on this site. Thanks