Northwest Fishing Reports

So, looking in the regs, what are the regs on greenlings? Can they be kept now before ling cod season? limits? It doesnt say in the regs, so I assume they are in the other bottom fish guidelines?

Bottomfish Includes Pacific cod, Pacific
tomcod, Pacific hake (or whiting), walleye
pollock, all species of dabs, sole and flounders
(except Pacific halibut), lingcod, ratfish,
sablefish, cabezon, greenling, buffalo sculpin,
great sculpin, red Irish lord, brown Irish
lord, Pacific staghorn sculpin, wolfeel, giant
wrymouth, plainfin midshipman, all species of
shark, skate, rockfish, rattail, and surf perches
excluding shiner perch.

page 18 from the regs

Year round season for most areas.

Thanks man. I actually saw that just after posting lol. Im guessing no size since they "usually" run small.

They normally run 10-14 inches. I normally catch them around the kelp beds on my same ling lures. You do get a lot of short strikes because they have a much smaller mouth and tiny teeth.

They make great lingcod bait.... Rig em up and send em back down live once lingcod season opens....

Why would you waist them? They're excelent table fair, as good any ling cod. From what the Calif state biologist told me they are about as close as you can come to being a ling. Just a red headed cusin if you will. I would bet you can't tell the difference after they're cooked. Get the power bait out, lings love it.

power bait? lol thats a first! Well. Not sure what was going on today. Went to the jetty and got the big skunk. Well, I did catch 2 crabs, watched a guy get one seabass, and had a monster ling cod swim along the jetty right past us. Then the dolphins came out and played just in front of us for the back half of the day. Not sure what happened. We threw everything at them. Grubs, shrimp flys, herring, squid jigs, buck tail jigs. I did have something bite the tail off of a grub. Any suggestions? The weather was great. It was an east wind and I read somewhere that it actually effects them by turning the bite off. I dunno lol. Im ready to catch a fish!

Power Bait plastics???? Perhaps you were thinking about trout bait, which is but a small part of the line.......

Haha yes. I was thinking power bait trout dough.

Bodofish wrote:Why would you waist them? They're excelent table fair, as good any ling cod. From what the Calif state biologist told me they are about as close as you can come to being a ling. Just a red headed cusin if you will. I would bet you can't tell the difference after they're cooked. Get the power bait out, lings love it.

Not a lot of greenling where I fish but next time I run into one I'll have to try it out. Lingcod happens to be my favorite fish around here to eat.....

I'm a live bait lingcod guy. Flounder sent back down are prime bait where I fish.

Greenling are by far the best choice for westport lings. I dunno about puget sound, but they are the main table fare for the jetty lings. And you catch enough greenling out there to go around, a few tossed to the wolves isn't a big deal. I've caught them up to four pounds out there, so the small ones make the bait, bigguns go home to the freezer. And you can tell the difference in the meat, the greenling have way smaller flakes, and are more delicate. Although I do like cabezon better than greenling, the ling cod is the best. I'll take it over halibut or chinook.

Emersome

Emm are some tasty little fishies one of my favorite types of fishing is for green lings..... ohh yea there little but dam they taste awesome. I have a secret spot that I go to, less then 20' of water and its like watching bill dance pulling bass out of a pond all day. The fun part is that you can catch lingcod after lingcod after lingcod all day too when there open. And the silvers run through there MMMMM dang it I wanna go fishing now... hmmm

I never used any bait on them, always just reject dungeness stinger jigs FTW

In Portland I've seen live greenling go for $20/lb in restaurants. Live cabezon $15/lb. Too rich for my blood, but I'm gonna certainly try to catch some... Never eaten greenling or cabezon, but they look very tasty.

What if you just downsized your lingcond jigs?
Wouldn't that work better and solve the "short strike" issues?

Terry

Here's a nice monster greenling! Pretty darn big.

Former state record was 3.8 pounds, this was 3.9! yup. monster

I've caught them bigger than that even! I'm going to wait until I can demolish the record to submit it!