What is everyones favorite Lingcod bait. I havent fished for Lings for quite afew years but I use to do pretty good with a chrome homemade jig.

The large twin tail scampi jigs are great, but it is hard to beat a 14 inch kelp greenling.

I'll second the Greenling but I've had excellent luck with live shimp.

Found out this last weekend mooching live herring works really good. Frozen herring and white Pt. Wilson Darts.

I like the big Scampi type artificials. We fished for bottomfish while at Seiku in Feb. and we caught some great lings on just about any color scampi or worm. It was a hoot catching the lings even if we had to through them back. We caught a couple lings about 12-15lbs. I didn't think lings of that size lived in water 20-30' deep?

Another vote for kelp greenling. Small rockfish and sand dab work too. Heck, any small, live, struggling fish will work.

The best bait I have come across is a small octopus. While fishing out of Ucluelet BC. I hooked a ling that puked out an octopus in the fish hold. Got to thinking, why not put it on the nordic. It turned out to be the best bait that I've ever used for the lings. Ferociuos hits that were easy to set the hook on. It lasted all day. Caught so many I lost count after 20. Am still wondering If I got my first ever fishing injury after that trip. I think I got what I call jiggingitis.It sets in in the elbow and the trapezia areas and gets real painful when I don't have rod and reel in my hand.

I had one old man on the boat who spend most his life running long range boats out of California. He swore that kittens were the best ling bait he'd ever used. I tied him on a black scampi and he limited on 2 fish over 40 lbs, still swore by the kittens though. For a little bit of preventive mainenance, try wrapping to bodies of your scampies with electrical or duct tape when they're brand new. It seems like a horrible way to treat a new lure, but they'll last much longer, and I haven't noticed any difference in their effectiveness.

david

Here kitty, kitty.......

The biggest ling I've ever seen hooked swalled about an 8 pound sea bass.

Have fished for ling for many years and many places. My favorite bottom fish to target. Live bait is usually your best option. Ling don't care about size. Nothing is too big for bait if you are after large lings. I have caught 27lb. lings with teeth marks from other lings on their tails.

Fresh dead bait or side slabs of fish will work well. Have had very good success with purple or black herring. I've heard so many good reports about octopus, that I will be using some this week off Whidby.

Some places show a very specific tendency for what the ling in that area prefer. Find out the bait of choice for that local and it will reap great rewards. We have been doing very well at the narrows bridge, but only with live herring or flounder ( landed four this morning to 13#, wife missed another four or five).

Fishing up in BC last year for Chinook and got into school of Mackerel. Salmon fishing kinda sucked so we started keeping the live mackerel and sent them down free spool with a couple oz of lead. You KNOW when a ling is after the Mackerel! Good way to make the best of a bad situation

i like the white jigs, and herring.

i like lead filled copper pipe,carry varies lenghts to get down deal with current

Bigone,
That sounds like the ones I use to make. Only I used old chrome bicycle handle bars cut to differant lenths than I put old hoochies over the hooks to give it a little action.

I agree with juggernaut about getting familiar with each locale. It really can help you catch fish if you know what sort of bait is available. You could talk to divers and see what they tell you swims in lingcod habitat. Bigger is better. With small baits you get small lings. In my opinion it's all about energy extraction efficiency. Baby octopus is the primo bait in California. Since we can't get them here I prefer to use squid tentacles hooked through the eyes. Another way to rig them up is with a bullet head jig. Insert the hook at the top and have it come out either eye. Yet another idea i have yet to try is rigging a hoochie on a bullet head jig with a grub. I think that with either technique you can expect a savage strike. Pssst everyone uses plastic worms, grubs but don't overlook plastic shads/minnows. Was out at keystone one time and accidentally snagged a smolt. Put it back in the water, but somehow managed to fall into a crevice head first, so i pulled it out by the tail and let it go on it's way. Just in front of me was rock with a ledge on the front face and when that smolt swam past the ledge I saw a fish(presumably a ling) nab that sucker. Luckily I had some shiners with me that I'd caught out at Mukilteo and used them for bait. Ended up giving up two of them to the ling before heading home empty handed.