Rod and reel salmon and diving for reef fish

[Okanagan]

Opening morning of salt water salmon off Ediz Hook in Port Angeles, WA.  Mt. Baker on the horizon.

We caught about 20 salmon to get a boat limit of 8. We have to release "wild" fish that do not have a clipped fin like hatchery fish are supposed to have.  The fish are bigger this year than last, and we kept a couple of 20 pounders, lost one at the net that was at least 23.  I've been out twice and personally gotten seven in the boat, released some of those and lost some others.



My son and grandsons have been diving quite a bit and this afternoon a grandson got a 17 lb. ling cod, pic below.  Ugly fish that has lots of meat on it and tastes superb. The meat is often a light blue color, and is on this fish.

 

[nastygunz]

Those salmon are beauties❤️🐟🐟🐟

[FinsnFur]

Oh boy those look great. Love me some Salmon!
Whats that half breed Walleye looking thang?

[nastygunz]

"My son and grandsons have been diving quite a bit and this afternoon a grandson got a 17 lb. ling cod, pic below.  Ugly fish that has lots of meat on it and tastes superb. The meat is often a light blue color, and is on this fish."

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=lingcod.printerfriendly

[Hawks Feather]

Interesting read on the Greenlings. With teeth like that I don't think I would want to get into a fight with one. I don't notice a spear mark on the fish, so I will assume that he 'arm wrestled' it. 

[pitw]

Glad you were out after them.
Buddy caught his first ling this year[he was some excited] and said it was excellent food.

[Okanagan]

Not sure where he hit it but there is no spear wound showing.  When I took the pics he had already sliced off the fillet on the opposite side, so it looks kind of deflated.

My sisters and I did a taste comparison test last month, comparing halibut, ling cod and true cod.  Halibut won slightly but not much over ling cod, with the true cod well down from the other two, softer meat.

I caught a ling cod that I called 60 inches.  It was huge, which always means a female.  The big ones lay a zillion eggs, so we release them.  I'll see if I can find a pic.  We never lifted it into the boat so never measured anything.  That was on the west side of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, about the latitude of southren Alaska.

Fairly often when fishing bottom fish in ling cod country, we will reel up a rock cod of some kind and a big ling will grab it on the way up and not let go.  We have caught several big ones that way, by netting or gaffing it before it turns loose of the hooked fish.
 

[KySongDog]

Are your boys free diving or scuba diving for the fish?  I scuba dive but have never tried spear fishing.

[Okanagan]

Are your boys free diving or scuba diving for the fish?  I scuba dive but have never tried spear fishing.

They are free diving when spear fishing.  They shoot a lot of fish in 15 feet of water, and are not usually spear fishing in more than 30.  They hunts reefs and kelp beds, kind of like still hunting for whitetails in a forest except that you and the deer can fly through the branches and tree tops.