Ling Diver:

Thanks for your polite and well reasoned response.

I think we are in general agreement, but I do want to get in my .02 regarding your belief that Washington's lingcod were wiped out, at least in part by folks taking one tropny.

While I suspect the sportsman has had some effect, I am dead certain the commercial lingcod fishermen were the primary cause of the decline. The numbers they took were so much bigger than the few we got there is no comparison.

When I was a kid, waaaay too many years ago, sport fishermen seldom tarjeted lingcod and seldom kept them. They were considered scrapfish and there was no glory in keeping one. My mom worked in a butcher shop where they sold it for .29 a pound.

Like so many other things, there is no one answer, but I beleive the commercials can take the vast bulk of blame for our lingcod collapse. Both for the ones they killed and because of the collapse of the rockfish which lings love to munch on.

The good news is they can come back fairly quickly if we give them a chance.